I didn’t dream that night. Or if I did, I didn’t remember it. No complaints from me; I count my damnations whenever I get them.
But Paul was another matter.
I woke to the sounds of him groaning, and not in a toe-curling way. Rolling over, I saw his back was to me. His head moved, and he let out another groan, almost a whimper. Paul was dreaming.
(I’ll be seeing him tonight)
Fuck.
A scan of the room showed me that Chantinelle was nowhere in sight, and my demon-sense wasn’t tingling, so I assumed we were alone. I let out a relieved breath. Okay, so I was being a wee bit paranoid. But I had cause. If Chelle were as powerful as Daun, I wouldn’t be able to sense her until she revealed herself to me. Luckily, she was just a mid-level demon.
Which was still strong enough to make Paul suffer from nightmares for the rest of his life.
Unhappy, and unsure of what I could do to release Paul from Chelle’s client list, I got out of bed. As I did my business in the bathroom, I thought through the possibilities, and they all came up short. Other than killing Chantinelle or filing a claim with King Ziminar — the Lord of the North, ruler of certain nefarious not relegated to Sin, such as ghosts and vampires and, you guessed it, Nightmares — there was little I could do: Angel had been correct when she’d said Chelle was just doing her job. I had no grievance to claim — and even if I did, I was mortal. King Ziminar wouldn’t hear my complaint. I even wrestled with approaching Daun, but his downtime influence over former succubi had nothing to do with their current clients as Nightmares. Daun couldn’t help me, even if he’d be inclined to do so.
Bless it all to Heaven, Paul had to fight Chantinelle’s influence all on his own.
I left the bathroom and sat on my side of the bed, wanting very much to wake Paul up with his dick in my mouth. It was only five in the morning; Paul didn’t have to be at work today until ten. And I wasn’t due for my shift until four in the afternoon. But no — I should let him sleep, even with him having a bad dream. Last night, he’d looked so exhausted. He needed to recharge.
Based on how horny I was, he’d need every last scrap of energy to keep up with me when he finally awoke. I’d give him until seven, and then I’d wake him up. Slowly. Lovingly.
Smiling, I leaned over to give him a soft kiss…and that’s when I noticed he was sweating like he was in a sauna. I sat back in shock. Heat radiated off him, and I saw that he’d kicked off his part of the blanket. Leaning back to him, now I saw how flushed his skin was, how strands of his hair clumped to his brow.
Biting my lip, I put the back on my hand on his forehead. Despite my inexperience with nursing or mommying, I knew he had a fever — he was hot to the touch. Seriously hot. Fry an egg hot.
Still sleeping, he jerked away from my hand.
My heart lodged in my throat. He was sick. Really sick. What did you do when someone was sick? Did you give them Advil? Mouth to mouth? A bath? A slug of whiskey?
“Paul,” I said, tying not to panic, “Paul, love, wake up. Paul,” I said, louder, “come on, you have to wake up now.”
His eyes opened very, very slowly. He focused on me, or tried to, and he struggled to sit up. “Jesse?” he croaked. “God, it’s so hot…” He started shivering.
Why was he shivering if he was hot? I grabbed the blanket to cover him, but he knocked it out of my hand. “Too hot,” he muttered, now shaking violently.
Oh Gehenna — was he dying?
“Angel!” I screamed, terror overwhelming me. “Angel, I need you!”
From behind me, a comforting chill, like a breeze on a summer afternoon. “I am here, Jesse Harris. What do you need?”
“It’s Paul,” I cried. “He’s sick! He’s burning up!”
Angel brushed past me to sit next to Paul. I scooted out of the way, one hand covering my mouth to keep from screaming. Screaming wouldn’t help. I was pretty sure of that. I watched as she placed a hand on Paul’s head, and to my great relief, I saw his shoulders unclench. He let out a long sigh, and his eyelids fluttered as he slumped back onto his pillow. Soon he was sleeping again, his breathing deep and even.
“I’ve calmed him, and lowered his core temperature,” Angel murmured. “But this is no human sickness. My power will not be effective for long.”
I couldn’t tear my gaze off of Paul’s sweating face. Already I could see his brow crinkling, as if he were lost in a bad dream. Keeping my voice low, I asked, “What’s making him sick?”
A pause, and then Angel turned to look at me. “There is Hell’s power at work here.”
My eyes narrowed. Chantinelle.
Rage bubbled through me, turning my world red. My nails bit into the meat of my palm. By Pit and Paradise, the next time I saw her, I would kill her. I swore it to my sire and to Sin itself. She’d gone too far.
“I should’ve woken up,” I growled through my clenched teeth. “When Chantinelle appeared, I should have sensed it.”
“She’s a Nightmare, Jesse Harris,” Angel said reasonably. “And a succubus before that. She knows how to keep humans asleep when she needs them to be sleeping.”
With her words, some of my fury lessened, and now worry wormed its way through my heart. I bit my lip as I looked at Paul. He was so helpless, just lying there. So fragile. So human. “Will he be okay?”
“We can help him physically, you and I,” she said. “But this isn’t a physical sickness. There is only so much we can do.”
“Angel,” I said tersely, “will he be okay?”
It seemed a long time before she replied, “I’m not sure.”
Fuck.
“Then tell me,” I said. “How can I help you?”
She gave me a list of things to bring her, ranging from stuff in the apartment to things I had to run out for. Let’s hear it for 24-hour pharmacies. (I’d thought that chicken soup was an old wives’ tale — to me, chocolate was the sure-fire cure-all for anything that ailed you. But Angel wanted me to pick up a quart of homemade chicken rice soup from the corner deli. Which I’d do, as soon as the store opened.)
A little more than an hour later, Paul was sleeping without Angel’s help, and his fever was lower. Angel said it was down to just below 102. I asked if that was good. She said it was better than the 104 it had been. I took her word on it; I still had a fairly skewed view of what constituted hot in terms of degrees. (Thousands of years of Hell will do that to an entity.)
Time for girlfriend duty. I called Paul’s office and spoke to the officer who picked up the phone. When I told him Paul was feverish and probably wouldn’t make it in, he told me he’d let Captain Reilly know, and that Paul should call in when he woke up.
Well, that was pretty easy. Next: Kevin at Spice. I knew he wouldn’t be there so early — it was a little after seven in the morning, and Spice didn’t open its doors to the public until noon. Kevin would be there maybe around ten. I kept the message on voicemail short and sweet: I had to stay home to nurse Paul back to health, and I wouldn’t make it in for my shift that afternoon unless Paul’s fever broke.
So there I was, ready to go Florence Nightingale on my man. Of course, when Paul woke up, he told me to get out.
“It’s just the flu,” he said, sounding pretty horrible. “It happens. People get sick. I just need some rest while I fight this off. But you shouldn’t be around me.”
“That’s sort of tough, what with me living here and all…”
“Hon,” he said, “I love you. Now get out of here. Please. Before you get sick too.”
I wanted to tell him that it wasn’t any regular strand of bacteria or virus that was screwing with his system. But all that would do was worry him. So I smiled and said I’d bring him some soup in a little bit.
“Stay with Angel,” he said.
Which was sort of out of the question, since I wanted her to stay with Paul.
“I will stay with her,” Angel said cheerfully. I wanted to punch her, but Paul seemed happy, so I just smiled and nodded and grabbed her by her collar and dragged her out to the living room.
“The Hell you will,” I said. “You’re staying here, helping him.”
She crossed her arms over her breasts. “My pledge to my King was to watch you and keep you safe from physical harm,” she said. “And that is what I plan on doing.”
My mouth opened, then closed. Angel, showing a backbone. Who knew? Finally, I said, “You told me this wasn’t a human sickness. We have to stay.”
“I told you that Hell’s power was at work,” she said quietly. “And it was.”
“And now?”
“Now I don’t sense it at all,” she said, sounding almost vexed. “It seems to have disappeared.”
My heart did a hopeful somersault. “So his physical symptoms now…?”
“Are normal human symptoms after fighting off an infection. He needs rest.”
Okay…so if it had been Chantinelle, her little whammy, or whatever it was, had worn off. I smiled grimly. Of course it had worn off. For all her bluster, she was just a mid-level former succubus. And Paul was a good man, one meant for Heaven.
(she’s small she’s nothing she’s barely a demon)
I’d been an idiot to think that Chelle could hurt him. She was nothing, barely a demon, when it came down to it. A Nightmare? Please. There’d been a reason I’d run away from Hell in the first place — there’d been no way I was going to spend my afterlife scaring humans with no other purpose. Chelle was a washed up, sad excuse of a succubus.
My smile broadened. Paul would be fine. He just needed rest, like he’d said, and like Angel just confirmed. “Fine. Apparently, I’ve been kicked out of the apartment. So, where to?”
She shrugged. “I am happy to go with you to your job. I am happy to go with you shopping.”
Ooh…
“Or perhaps you’d like to give another dance lesson?” She’d asked that like a starving orphan begging for more gruel.
A smile played on my lips. “That would cheer me up…”
“Done.” She closed her eyes, and after a moment she said, “My sisters are gathered. Shall we?”
Remembering how well I’d done with Angel’s preferred mode of travel, I put my hand up. “This time, we’re taking a cab.”
# # #
Today, it was a haloful of Jennifer Bealses, all wearing off-the-shoulder sweatshirts made fashionable in Flashdance. Angels are the cutest things. They’d probably make great pets.
“Okay, cherubs,” I said. “From the top.”
The angels struck their poses, their legwarmered legs straight, their heads held high. I pressed PLAY, and a steady drumbeat pulsed out from the speakers. Bass guitar joined in, and then Amy Winehouse’s sultry vocals pulled everything together as she sang “You Know I’m No Good.” The cherubs moved, their limbs sinuous and flowing. They worked with the music, letting their hips roll and their shoulders shrug, thrusting their tits like they knew how to use them. And bless me if they didn’t look like they were enjoying themselves. Beals No. 4 was actually smiling, a true Come Hither smile, one that dripped sensuality.
Yes, they can be taught!
As they gyrated to Amy’s confession of sleeping with her ex-boyfriend, my cell phone buzzed. I told them to keep dancing as I took the call.
“Jezebel,” Kevin from Spice said. “Listen, you don’t have to come in.” He sounded flustered, distracted…and sad.
“Thanks,” I said, holding one hand over my ear to tune out the music. “Um, is everything okay?”
“No,” he said, and “no” again. And he said, “Things are really fucked, is how they are. Faith is dead. Just found out from the cops. Aw, they killed Faith.” His voice broke, and he said, “Mia and Faith. We’re cursed, Jezebel. We’re cursed, and they’re getting killed because of it.”
My chest constricted, and my eyes stung with fresh tears. “I’m so sorry,” I said, my throat too tight, the words not wanting to leave my lips. “Paul told me yesterday. He saw her. You know. In the morgue. He identified her.”
“Right, the cop boyfriend.” He let out a harsh laugh. “Maybe he wants to moonlight as a bouncer? Or a bodyguard? My girls are dying.”
Feeling lightheaded, I said, “I’ll ask. When he’s feeling better.”
Kevin told me when the funeral would be. I thanked him, my voice sounding strange and distant. My head hurt, and so did my heart, and I suddenly needed to sit down, so I squatted on my heels. I didn’t understand what was wrong with me — I thought I had cried about Faith yesterday, that I was done with tears for a dead acquaintance.
I thought the pain had gone away.
“Jezebel,” Kevin said, sounding nothing like the officious prick he always was, “listen. You should quit. There’s something bad happening. I don’t want you and the others getting hurt.”
Still crying, I thought of Faith, dancing in the spotlight, her pretend wings fluttering as she danced to George Michael. I thought of Mia, bitchy Mia who worked the tiprail when she shouldn’t and thought the height of seduction was “You wanna dance?” I thought of Candy, of Kelly, of the other dancers I’d come to know and like and dislike and share client stories with, and I wondered if any of them would have their throats pierced by a madman’s knife.
And I heard the music playing there in the studio, heard Amy Winehouse lamenting about how she’d told her boy that she was no good — felt the music working its magic on me, telling my limbs to move.
I thought of Angel, who’d promised to protect me. Surely, she would help the others at the club too.
“I’m coming in,” I said. “As long as Paul doesn’t need me with him, I’ll be there. I promise.”
He said nothing for a moment, and I wondered if I’d lost the connection. Then Kevin said, “Thanks.” That’s it — just that one word. But there was a dictionary’s worth of meaning in it.
“Four o’clock,” I said.
“See you then.”
I hung up, thinking of Faith as I wiped away my tears. I wondered how Candy would take the news. Then I called home.
Paul didn’t pick up.
He’s sleeping, I told myself, hanging up before I made myself worry too much. He’d told me that he just needed rest, and he’d fallen back asleep. That was all.
I turned to the angels, who were all looking at me — and Angel herself seemed sad, as if she’d heard the entire conversation. Knowing her, she probably had.
“Well,” I said, forcing cheer into my voice. “One more time, from the top.”
The angels murmured their consent.
But we were only a quarter way through the song when to a cherub they froze, their eyes wide. Angel let out a cry…and then they all disappeared.
Oh crap.
Squatting in the kitchen, dustpan and broom in hand, I was sweeping up the glittering piles of debris when a bouquet of roses appeared in front of me. I let out a surprised squawk, overbalanced, and sat hard on my ass.
And looked up to see Paul standing there, roses in hand, looking sheepish and so damn sexy, his too-long brown hair curling around his ears and neck, his mouth set in a lopsided smile.
“Not the reaction I’d imagined,” he said, offering me a hand.
I grinned as he helped me to my feet. “I declare a do-over.”
“Done.”
“Ooh, flowers. For me?”
“For you.” He squeezed my hand. “Hon, I’m sorry. About before.”
“Me too,” I said, contrite. Then I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him down to me, and planted a huge kiss on his mouth. He ummed, first in surprise, then in pleasure, and he wound his arms around my waist. He may have dropped the roses to the floor. I was too busy sucking the lips off his face to notice.
“You are kissing,” Angel said. Can’t put one over on her. “I should leave.”
Paul ended the kiss, and I wrestled with the possibility of ending Angel’s perfect smile by punching out her eyeteeth. “Stay,” Paul said. “Please.”
“As you wish,” she said.
“Sweetie,” I said to her, winking, “I didn’t know you were into voyeurism.”
She blushed, and I felt immediately better.
“Just ruffling your feathers,” I said. “I won’t make you watch any passionate kissing.” I unwrapped my arms from his waist and took the flowers to put them in a vase. I thanked Paul again, more with words than with body language.
“I overreacted,” he said, sitting at the kitchen table. “I just worry about you.”
My White Knight.
Smiling, I turned to face him…and was stunned to see a sickly pallor over him, a greenish aura that radiated illness. I marched up to him and put my hand on his brow, mimicking all those mothering types I’d seen over the millennia. All I could tell was his forehead felt clammy. “You’re sick.”
“Just tired.” He smiled, but I saw how pinched it was by the corners. “Not sleeping well.”
“And working too hard,” I scolded, absolutely not thinking about Chantinelle visiting Paul’s dreams.
“What happened to your hand?”
Way to change the topic. I glanced down at the bandages. “Apparently, I have a drinking problem. I dropped my glass.”
“You cut yourself?”
“Burned myself.”
He stared at me. “I think you should start over and tell me what happened. Use small words.”
So I told him the truth: I’d gotten pissed off, and I accidentally broiled my drink. And my hand. I told him how, with Angel’s help, I put out the fire. When I was done, I felt drained. This telling-the-truth thing sure took a lot out of a person. Or maybe that was from all the death, doom, and destruction throughout the course of the day. Mental note: Don’t have a catharsis on busy days.
Paul’s voice shook me out of my thoughts. “You talk to your sister?”
“She’s not my sister,” I said with a sigh. “And I left her an urgent message.”
Paul looked to Angel, who nodded in confirmation.
“Don’t do that,” I snapped at him. “Either you believe me, or you don’t. Do you?”
He turned back to me, his gaze considering. Finally, he said, “Yeah. Yeah. I do.” He raked his hands through his curling hair, and he let out a long, shuddering sigh. “My turn to tell you something.”
Based on his posture, he wasn’t about to ask for my hand in marriage. I steeled myself for the worst. Which, given how this day had been going, would have to be on par with the world ending in the next few minutes.
Bless me, he looked so tired.
Paul said, “The demons you mentioned earlier? The ones walking the streets?”
Uh oh. “Yes…?”
He looked up at me, and there was something dark and desperate in his gaze. “I’m seeing them too.”
Oh, crap.
# # #
After a round of very stiff (and non-flaming) drinks, Paul told me and Angel that he’d been seeing demons ever since we both died and went to Hell, more than three months ago. Look at that: I wasn’t the only one keeping secrets. As he talked, I felt an unsettling mixture of resentment and empathy churning in my belly, stiffening my shoulders.
Life sure had been easier when I didn’t have human emotions to mess me up.
“At first,” Paul said, “I thought it was my eyes playing tricks on me.” He looked down at his empty glass. “I mean, a lot had happened, and so maybe I was just, I don’t know, projecting. Making it up. But then I started seeing more of them. In stores. Out on the street.” A shudder worked its way across his shoulders. “In the station.”
So those times when Paul said work was Hell, he’d really meant it. Go figure. “What were they doing?”
“They were just…there, you know? Watching. Laughing. Some of them whispering. To each other. To people. But no one else saw them.” His face was etched with pain. “When I saw this yellow…blob…looming behind the captain, I almost shat my pants. But he didn’t react to it, so I pretended I didn’t see it. The thing didn’t seem to see me. Just the captain.”
“That’s a creature of Envy,” I said. “Your captain must be the jealous type.”
“No one saw it, saw any of them.” Paul frowned at his empty glass. “So I thought had to be making it up. Or maybe going crazy.”
“Gee,” I said, “it’s not like your girlfriend is a former demon who could have confirmed whether you’d been seeing demons or not. Gehenna, Paul, why didn’t you tell me?”
He shot me a glare. “I thought I was losing my mind. Cut me some slack.”
Oops. I must have threatened his manhood.
Well, fuck that. “This from the man who was yelling at me not even an hour ago for not telling him about how I was accidentally tapping into Hell magic and nearly killing someone.” I crossed my arms. “Looks like I’m not the only one with trust issues.”
He held my gaze for another moment, his eyes filled with sullen anger. Then he blew out a sigh and hung his head. “You’re right.”
I knew that. Didn’t make me feel any better, though — especially because Paul was starting to look seriously sick. The purple smudges under his eyes stood out in stark contrast to his now-pale skin, and his eyes looked glazed. “Sweetie, you’ve had a rough couple of months. You’ve pushed yourself to the breaking point with work. That would drive anyone to start seeing things.”
“Clearly,” Angel said, “Paul Hamilton has been over-compensating for his new extrasensory abilities by pushing himself at his job, working longer hours with fewer breaks in between.” She sounded almost pleased, as if the notion of Paul working himself sick was rather quaint.
“Clearly,” I said dryly. I remembered how, months ago, Paul had seen Daun and Meg right here in this very apartment, when they should have been all but invisible to him. “Is he able to see the supernatural because of his Pit stop?”
“Yes. As with you, Jesse Harris, his soul had left his body, and thus saw the truth of things, both in Hell and beyond. He cannot unsee what he has seen.”
“In other words,” I said to Paul, “the genie’s out of the bottle. Dying and then coming back to life means you now see the stuff that’s really out there.”
Paul didn’t look at me. “Like vampires and werewolves?”
“I meant more like celebrities without makeup.”
That at least got him to smile.
“You see demons,” I said. “Anything else suddenly wonky? Any, I don’t know, auras flashing around people?”
“Because seeing demons isn’t enough?” He let out a harsh laugh. “No, no auras. No mind reading. No telekinesis. No time travel. No working with light or shadow. Just seeing demons.” He smiled grimly. “And not going crazy.”
I patted his hand. So much for my aborted theory that all humans who return from the dead get flaky aura-reading abilities. But then, I’d gotten my pseudo-ability when I’d woken up with a brand-new soul, way before I went back to Hell on a rescue mission. So maybe sudden psychic abilities only got bestowed when you went from demon to human. Or maybe it had been a gift from my sire. Or a joke from the Almighty.
Paul’s eyes were closed. He’d downed a lot of scotch, and he was either sick or exhausted. The rest of our day off just turned to me getting him to bed early. Any other day, I would have rejoiced. But the bed wouldn’t be used for aerobic activity. Not tonight. “Love,” I said softly, “you need to get some sleep. You look like Hell. And I should know.”
He muttered, “It’s not even dinnertime.”
“I’ll make you a big breakfast in the morning.”
Paul lifted his head to look at me, humor shining in his red-rimmed eyes. “You, cooking? Now I know I’m delirious.”
“Har dee har. Come on, love.” I helped him up and walked him to the bedroom. I helped him get undressed, and I didn’t even make an obvious play for nookie. He was too wrecked for nookie.
Bless me, humanity really had rubbed off on me.
Once Paul was tucked under the covers, I gave him a soft kiss on his brow. He was already halfway asleep when he told me he loved me.
Good night, love. Sweet dreams.
“And oh,” Chantinelle says, “do let your man know that I’ll be seeing him tonight. I can’t wait.”
Thinking about Chelle’s promise, I walked back to the kitchen, where Angel waited, her glass of apple juice mostly untouched. “Angel,” I said, “you’re protecting me. Can you protect Paul too?”
“Physically? Of course.”
“No,” I said, biting my lip. “Psychically. From a Nightmare.”
“Ah.” She looked down at her hands. “No, Jesse Harris. I’m afraid I cannot.”
Fuck. “Why not? Can’t you just bless the apartment, or throw some Holy Water on him? Something, anything, to keep Chantinelle away?”
She sighed. “Chantinelle does not overstep by coming to plague his dreams. That’s her role, Jesse Harris. She is not trying to steal his soul. She is not trying to harm him physically. She is coming to terrify him. That is her assigned task. There’s nothing I can do.”
“But it is hurting him physically. Did you see him just now? He looks terrible.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “But that is not from a Nightmare’s touch.”
“Crap.” I sank into a chair and fiddled with my drink.
“If it helps,” Angel said, “I am happy to stay the night. I cannot stop a Nightmare from doing its job, but I can negate any physical aftereffects, should there be any.”
Relief loosened knots in my shoulders. “Thanks,” I said softly.
Angel smiled at me — so soft, so pure, like breath on snow. “I have a question for you.” I arched a brow, and she continued: “You asked your man about auras, and you mentioned them in passing to me, before that, speaking of yourself. This is an ability you’ve had since your soul’s return from Hell?”
“Longer than that,” I said. “Since the time my sire granted me a soul.”
She frowned.
“And I see them around people. Sometimes. It’s flaky,” I admitted.
Angel cocked her head to the side, obviously thinking Very Important thoughts. You could tell from the little furrow in her brow. Or maybe she was pooping her panties. She said, “Do you sense people’s emotions through these auras? Do you pick up on their feelings, or their hopes and fears?”
“No.” I floundered, trying to find the right words to describe what the auras were like. “Closer to a snapshot of something to come. Maybe. Sort of.”
“Clairvoyance. Very interesting.” She peered at me, arching a brow. “You haven’t made any pacts with demons?”
“No.” Not for their lack of trying, though. Stupid Chantinelle.
“What about the Hecate?”
My blood froze. “What about Her?”
“Among Her other traits, She sees aspects of the future. She sometimes shares that aspect with Her worshipers. Have you bound yourself to Her?”
I thought of a gold bracelet, one with the ability to connect the wearer’s soul to the body, a bracelet called the Rope of Hecate. And then I thought of Caitlin, of how she’d worked her mojo to have the Universe see me as her twin sister. Of how she’d willingly given me her name, even after I’d stolen her looks. And her wallet. And her shieldstone.
And I remembered the last phone conversation I’d had with Caitlin, months ago.
“You might have been a hotshot succubus,” Caitlin says, “but let me tell you, you don’t know much about being a human.”
“I’m learning quickly,” I reply. “I’m learning you can’t trust anyone, for starters.”
“What happened? Are you okay?”
“Why? Why do you care?”
A pause, and then she says, “It’s my good nature. Are you all right?”
Suddenly dizzy, I closed my eyes.
“So…you’re paying my bills and things? What are you, my sugar momma?”
“It’s temporary.”
“Why? Why’re you being so nice?”
“I’m a nice person. A good witch, as Glinda once said to Dorothy.”
“Bullshit. You tied yourself to me, gave me your name, for Hell’s sake! Why would you do such a thing?”
“Let’s just say I care about what happens to you.”
But it wasn’t Caitlin at all, was it?
“The Hecate knows much, Jesse,” Caitlin tells me. “She is the keeper of hidden knowledge and new beginnings. Nothing is hidden from Her.”
“Oh fuck me with a fork,” I whispered.
“You healed me as a gift?” I say to Caitlin.
“Oh, no,” she replies with a laugh. “I did that because looking at you dying was like seeing myself on my deathbed. Purely selfish of me.”
She may be one of the strongest witches alive, but she’s also a shitty liar.
Caitlin had saved my life then, when I’d gotten shot, because the Hecate had told her to do so. Caitlin had bound herself to me because the patron goddess of witchcraft had commanded her to do so.
Would Caitlin have caused my power surge if the Hecate had whispered in her ear?
Oh yeah, as sure as the storybook witch had a yen for eating fat human children.
“Jesse Harris?” The angel, sounding two parts curious, one part concerned. “What is it?”
“This magic that I’ve been leaking,” I said, keeping my eyes closed. “Is this something that you can help me with?”
“Help you?”
“Can you guide me, teach me how to control it? Make it stop?”
I heard her sigh. “My own strength comes from a different source than yours.”
No shit, Sherlock. “But could you still teach me?”
“Unfortunately, no. All I can do is offer my support. You need someone who works with Hell’s power to walk you through how to manage Hell’s power.”
Of course I did.
“And what’s more,” Angel said, “you need a mortal to guide you through it. A demon, even one willing to or forced to help you, wouldn’t take human limitations into account, and would probably destroy you. Accidentally, of course.”
Of course. Bless me, I was so fucking stupid.
“In short,” I said, “I need my sister.” Even if it had been Caitlin or her goddess who’d somehow jinxed me and was the cause of my magic overload, I still needed her.
And I had the sinking suspicion that Caitlin knew it.
That didn’t go as I’d planned.
I released the breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding, wondering why Paul was so furious with me. Had I truly been so unreasonable? Or was he overreacting? Mental note: visit self-help section of bookstore and read up on relationships. There had to be a guide out there somewhere.
“Paul Hamilton is angry with you.”
I scowled at Angel. “Thanks for the newsflash.”
Based on the cherub’s lack of reaction, my tone didn’t even ruffle her feathers. She was looking at the front door, as if she were tracking Paul’s progress down the hall. Maybe she was. “I don’t understand why he is so angry. You said you didn’t wish to worry him. That’s a good thing, yes?”
My scowl melted into a dejected sigh. “You’d think.”
“But he is acting as if you’d insulted him.”
“Yeah.”
She glanced at me, her brow wrinkled with confusion. “So he would rather worry about you? Is that a human trait? A male trait? Or something specific to Paul Hamilton?”
“All of the above.” I pressed my fingers against the bridge of my nose, trying to fend off the headache I felt coming. “I don’t know. This love thing gets complicated.”
“He wants to protect you.”
I let out a snort. “That’s just dandy. I’ll be sure to tell Michael not to bother with all the demonizing, because my White Knight will be my living shield. Yeah, that’ll go over real well.” On cue, my head starting throbbing—gently, for now, and just in the temples. Little pulses of pressure, enough to let me know that there was too much going on inside of me and sooner or later, it was going to get out.
“You didn’t tell him about the Nightmare.”
Frowning, I said, “Sure I did.”
“You mentioned that you had slept poorly. But you didn’t say it was due to a visit from a former succubus.”
Oh, right. “What’s the point? All that would do would — ”
“Worry him?”
“Exactly.”
Angel’s next words came out slowly, thoughtfully. “Maybe he would rather know everything that is causing you pain, even though it would worry him. Maybe he believes he can help you.”
“He can’t,” I said, grimacing. It would be so nice if he could. If Paul could make all my worries and fears disappear, I’d be a very happy former succubus. Life would probably be incredibly dull, but I’d be very willing to give that a shot. Imagine what it would be like, walking the streets without seeing demons waiting to pounce, without thinking about the end of everything just over the horizon.
Yeah, real boring. Sign me up.
Angel said, “Maybe he believes you don’t trust him.”
I opened my eyes to find her staring at me intently, like she was trying to read my mind. That shouldn’t have bothered me; after thousands of years of having a psychic connection with demons, I was used to having no mental privacy. But something gnawed at me, some feeling I couldn’t place, taking bites out of my belly as Angel peered at me. “Of course I trust him,” I said, perturbed. “It has nothing to do with trust.”
“So why didn’t you tell him?”
“Get off my back already,” I snarled. “It’s not like I never tell him anything. Satan spare me, I blabbed about the demons on the streets, about the Nameless Evil. I almost told him about Armageddon coming.”
“Yes,” Angel said, frowning at her hands. “You should not have done that.”
Silence, thick and suffocating, as her words penetrated. So much for the cherub giving me a heads up before I did something that would possibly damn myself for all eternity.
My voice strangled, I said, “I stopped from saying the worst of it.” That didn’t matter. I shouldn’t have opened my mouth about what Hell was doing, let alone why. But bless it all, I had to tell Paul something. What else could I have done?
“He just needs a reason, Jesse Harris,” Angel said softly, not meeting my gaze. “I fear you may have given it to Him.”
She didn’t mean Paul, either. Feeling the blood drain from my face, I asked, “Why didn’t you say something?”
“Your will is your own.” Now she looked at me, her large eyes brimming with sorrow. She said, “It isn’t for me to stop you from making your own choices. You chose to tell your man something that humans aren’t supposed to know. If there is a price to be paid for your choice, so be it.”
Crap.
Creepers of ice wound their way up my back, over my heart, making my chest ache. “Thanks for the spiffy protection, Angel,” I said, my voice shaky. “You’re fired.”
“I said no physical harm would come to you while I watched over you,” she said primly, anger lacing her words. “The state of your soul is your own affair.”
Double crap.
“Well, at least the Furies haven’t come for you,” she said helpfully. Then she added: “Yet.”
I folded my arms on the table, then laid my head on my arms. Michael still wanted me in Hell; a serial killer was murdering dancers; demons were tempting humans in general; Chantinelle was after Paul and, apparently, me; Paul was pissed off at me for not telling him about the supernatural shit, including my tentative grasp on Hell magic; and now, because I’d attempted to explain said supernatural shit to him at all, the Erinyes might be gunning for my soul.
And thanks to truly horrific timing, I hadn’t had sex in weeks. This day couldn’t possibly get any worse.
“Now would be a good time to call your sister,” the angel said.
Strike that. Now my day was officially rock bottom.
“She’s not my sister,” I said, my arms muffling my words.
“Be that as it may, you should call her now.”
“Why? Because Paul wants me to? Because she really can help me?”
“All of the above.”
I peeked up at the angel. She was smiling, all full of compassion and grace and all the bullshit that makes cherubs so fucking perky. “That answer only works if there are three or more choices.”
“Call her, Jesse Harris.”
“Fine, fine,” I muttered, getting up. I stomped into the kitchen and picked up the phone. Pouting, I dialed the number I knew by heart — even though I’d never actually memorized it; another thing to chalk up to Caitlin’s über-powerful magic.
(don’t answer)
Maybe I’d get lucky and she wouldn’t be home. As I waited for Caitlin to pick up, I absently rubbed my forehead. My headache, not to be outdone by mere fingertip massage, kicked into high gear. Terrific.
(don’t answer)
On the third ring, the line connected. I was in luck; her answering machine picked up. Caitlin’s voice — my voice — told me that no one was available right now, but if I’d leave a message, someone would return my call shortly. The “blessed be” at the end of the recording made my shoulder blades itch.
“Heya,” I said after the beep. “It’s Jesse. Um. I need to ask you something. If you have a moment. I know you’re busy doing, um, whatever you do.” I actually had no idea what Caitlin did when she wasn’t witching. For all I knew, she was the vice president of marketing for a telecommunications company. “So when you get this message, call me. Um, please. Thanks.”
I hung up, relieved. Still headachy, but definitely glad I didn’t have to speak to Caitlin just yet. Maybe it was irrational, but I didn’t want —
(humans interfering)
— my pseudo sister to get involved. Not when it meant putting my hard-earned soul at risk. I clenched my fist, thinking of how Caitlin had been interfering with my life from the start. So what that I’d been the one to turn to her when I needed a witch to turn me into a human in the first place? Or that I’d stolen her amulet? Or her looks? That hadn’t given her the right to —
(interfere)
— spy on me, to be a link between me and her bitch goddess, the Hecate. Why did the patron of witches give a shit about one former demon? Why couldn’t they just all leave me the fuck alone and stop interfering with my life?
“Perhaps she can help you,” Angel said from behind me.
I jumped about ten feet, then spun to face the cherub. “For fuck’s sake, stop sneaking up on me!”
She smiled. “Silence is golden.”
“If you start spouting Aesop,” I growled, “I’m going to hit you.”
Angel blinked her large, blue eyes. “Why would I — ?”
“Never mind.”
I slammed the phone back into its cradle, then stalked over to the bathroom. Angel shadowed me. Standing in the doorway of the bathroom, she watched me open up the medicine cabinet and take out the bottle of Advil. Her pretty mouth was set in a frown. She didn’t even get frown lines. It was so unfair. She asked, “Does your head still pain you?”
“No, I’m just getting addicted to ibuprofen. Good stuff. Better than heroin.”
She eyed me suspiciously as I uncapped the bottle. “You’re joking, aren’t you.”
“Who, me?” I downed three pills, dry swallowing them. Okay, mortal magic. Do your thing. Make with the soothing.
“I believe two is the recommended dosage.”
“Yeah, well, if I OD, you’re here to pump my stomach, right?” I shook the bottle at her. “Is this physical enough for you? You still my guardian angel, Angel?”
She sniffed delicately, like the —
(celestial bitch)
— prissy thing she was. The sound was so officious, so infuriating, the sort of noise that digs into your skin like a tic. Lifting her chin, she said, “I cannot protect you from yourself, Jesse Harris.”
“Who’s asking you to? Get out of my way.” I shouldered past her, none too gently. And I have to admit, bumping her felt good. Real good. I wondered how terrific I’d feel if I punched out her eyeteeth. Would it be like a caffeine rush? Or something sweeter —
(like blood)
— like the richest chocolate, thick and smooth and so very addictive? Peripherally, I caught her rubbing her shoulder. Aw, poor little angel got all bruised. Maybe next time, she fall down, go boom.
My head pounding, I grinned as I walked down the hall to the kitchen.
“Jesse Harris?” The angel sounded tentative. Maybe I scared her.
(good)
Good. I should scare her. She was just a prissy celestial bitch, bland to the point of pathetic. I had nothing to say to her, so I kept walking. If I needed saving, then maybe I’d acknowledge her. Or not.
In the kitchen, I pulled out the ingredients for a Sex on the Beach. Hey, I had to get my sex somehow. I sure as Sin wasn’t getting any from my man. No, he was too busy working. Or getting pissed off at me and storming away.
(bullshit)
It was all bullshit. Him with his work ethic, his ridiculous do-gooder streak that made him want to make the world a safer place. I poured in a liberal amount of vodka into a glass, shaking my head as the ice crackled from the alcohol. I loved Paul —
(stupid mortal idiot)
— but he was an idiot for walking out on me, for judging me, for thinking that I cared about what he felt. He was just a mortal. A flesh puppet.
“Jesse Harris!”
Snarling, I whirled to face the celestial. How dare she raise her voice to me, here in my home? Rage swam through me, narrowed my vision to tiny pinpoints of red.
She wouldn’t even meet my gaze. Of course not; she had no right to look upon me. She was just a cherub, lowest of the celestials, one without a proper name. She should be crawling on her white belly. Instead, she was focused on the glass in my hand.
Which was smoking.
I blinked, and blinked again. And stared at the boiling contents of my glass.
“Oh fuck,” I whispered. My head was pounding in time to my galloping heart, and I cried out as my fingers started to smoke. My hand shook violently; in the glass, the vodka churned. And then my hand caught fire.
I had two seconds in which I stood in utter shock. It doesn’t sound like a long time at all, but when you’re burning, two seconds can stretch into the better part of forever. It’s like life slows down to a series of freeze frames, just enough to let you focus on one sensation before spluttering forward in a burst of static. One-one-thousand: A tongue of orange red licks over my flesh, searing the back of my hand. Two-one-thousand: My skin crackles as it chars, the fine bones popping as the muscles twist and sizzle. For those two seconds, I watched and heard the fire take my hand, fascinated by the colors and sounds. And then the sweet, meaty aroma teased my nostrils, and I realized I was smelling myself cook.
That snapped me out of my shock. I started screaming before the pain actually kicked in, and once it did, I screamed all the louder. I’ve been on fire before — I’ve done laps in the Lake of Fire before — but that was when I’d been a demon, and mostly impervious to heat. This burning now was nothing short of agony that bolted from my hand to my brain.
Angel slapped her hands over mine to smother the flames, then jerked back with a hiss. “Hellfire,” she spat. “I can’t extinguish it.”
I couldn’t move; I couldn’t breathe. My voice gave out and I gasped, suffocating on my terror. All I could think was, Make it stop, make it stop, make it stop!
“Jesse Harris, you have to put out the fire.”
Gehenna, help me make it stop!
“Jesse,” the angel said, her voice reverberating over the crackling of the fire, “you called the power up. You can push the power away.”
Help me!
“You can do it, Jesse. Put out the fire.”
Easy for her to say. As a demon, the magic had been part of me, woven intricately in to my very being; touching it was as simple, as thoughtless, as breathing was to humans. But now I would have to search for it deep within myself, find that spark of power and figure out what to do with it. This raced through my mind with the speed of panic. I didn’t know if I could even identify the misplaced magic inside of me, let alone control it enough to put out the fire.
However, burning alive is a powerful motivator.
Screwing my eyes shut, I blocked out the smells and sounds of my hand cooking. I couldn’t block out the feeling of my flesh puckering and twisting in the heat, of my muscles sizzling, of the sweat trailing down my face. Nauseated, gritting my teeth against the pain, I reached out blindly for the wild magic inside of me.
There, winking like a dying star, the power nestled deep in my core — cancerous, eroding my soul. I grabbed on, and with that touch the magic roared. For that blistering moment I was the magic and it was me; I felt the power of Hell crashing over me, Hell and something else, something pure where Hell was corrupt. I burned, all of my humanity flaking away like ash; I froze, all of my emotions ready to be chipped away. Those powers mingled in me, surging through me in a rush of pain and heat and ice.
In that moment, I knew I could just let myself go, let the wild magic consume me. Let go of the pain — the rage inside of me, the confusion, the questions. Lose myself, and let the demon free. Or I could fight that power, desperately hold onto my humanity even as the world around me unraveled.
Demon or human.
I saw sea-green eyes sparkling; I heard soft laughter, sweeter than music. Paul’s voice, soft yet strong, murmuring the most powerful words since those that had created the Universe: I love you.
With a scream of defiance and rage, I burst through the magic. Even as it shredded around me, remnants of the power clung onto me, leechlike, scrabbling for purchase, ready to burrow back into my heart. Ready to bow before the Nameless Evil and dance as the Devil blighted all living things with Its touch. Ready to twist me and use me in its desire to walk upon the ruins of the world.
Panting, I stood tall, my fists clenched. No matter how powerful it was, that magic wasn’t me. I wasn’t it. I was Jezebel, and I wouldn’t let anyone, anything, steal me away from myself again.
I am Jezebel. Hear me roar.
The power folded in upon itself, and again, and again, until it was nothing more than a speck upon the wind. No matter how I willed it to disappear, that speck remained, taunting, just out of reach.
It would have to do.
I opened my eyes, watched the fire around my fingers gutter and die. The glass slipped from my charred hand and fell to the floor, where it shattered.
# # #
Seated again at the kitchen table, I stared morosely at the mess of broken glass on the floor. Angel was wrapping my swollen hand in a clean bandage. She had used her power to heal the worst of the damage, but she hadn’t been able to just bamf it all away. Hellfire, she’d said, left its mark on mortal things. At the very least, I’d have scars.
Hell knew, there were worse things.
On the ground, shards of glass caught my reflection, slicing it into jagged pieces. I felt like that inside: broken, cut up, pieces of me ready to be swept away. And so very tired. My voice toneless, I said, “I don’t understand what’s happening to me.”
The angel continued wrapping my hand, her face somber, her touch gentle. Lines appeared on her brow as she studiously said nothing.
“Angel? Do you know something? About what’s happening to me?”
She frowned in concentration as she finished bandaging my hand. When she was done, I flexed and waggled my fingers. They were stiff, and they were itching like mad, but they were healed. Mostly. Holding my hand in my lap, I waited for Angel to answer.
She didn’t right away. Her white-gold hair tucked into an elegant twist, her white suit immaculate, she sat across from me, her posture stiff, her expression bland and completely unreadable — a statue of cold perfection. A minute ticked by, and then two, before she finally spoke.
“You’re touching Hell’s magic,” she said. “And it is touching you in return.”
I looked at my bound hand. The exposed fingertips were red and blistering. “I’ve wielded Hell’s power for thousands of years. Nothing like this has ever happened before.”
“You’re mortal now, Jesse Harris. That changes everything. Mortals aren’t meant to touch Hell’s power.”
“Witches do,” I grumbled.
“The witches who have true power have bargained for it with their goddess,” Angel said, “and she supplies that power to them.” Lecturing, now: “You know as well as I that filtered power isn’t the same as power directly from its source.”
“You’re right,” I said with a sigh. “But why am I still able to tap into Hell’s power at all? Why now?”
“You died, Jesse Harris. Your soul went to Hell and returned.” She didn’t need to say “duh,” her tone did an admirable job all by itself. “Surely, you cannot think that the experience has not changed you?”
“You’re saying that because I went to Hell as a mortal and survived the trip, now I have access to my former power?”
She shrugged. “Perhaps. I think it more likely that you are less bound by disguises and mortal trappings.”
I blinked at her. “’Splain, please.”
“When a human dies, her soul awakens.” She smiled at me, all benevolence and light. “Do you really believe that your soul simply went back to sleep, now that you’re alive again?”
Huh. “So this magic that’s leaking out of me at really bad times, that’s…what, my soul saying howdy? Couldn’t it send me an email instead?”
Angel laughed, the sound like birdsong. “Nothing quite like that. You’re in touch with yourself, your true self, in a way that most mortals aren’t. People lie to themselves frequently. You’re able to see through those lies.”
“The auras,” I said slowly. “The way I’m able to sense demons. Well, demons who aren’t Daun.”
“That makes sense.”
Frustrated, exhausted, and more than a little scared, I snapped, “How? He’s a demon. He should be on my demon radar. Unless he’s got himself an infernal version of a shieldstone.” That would just be my luck: Daunuan with a magical doodad that blocked his presence from those who could sense such things.
Angel paused, considering her words. Finally she said, “He does not have such an object. He does not need one.”
“No, his ego is enough to blindside pretty much everyone.”
She frowned at me. “You are too harsh, Jesse Harris. He is the one who told me to approach you the other night, the night you tried to help my sister.”
“Yeah, he mentioned it. Said he was hoping I’d pull a Good Samaritan on you.”
“No, Jesse Harris. He told me to keep my eye on you. The troubles my sisters and I have been encountering are besides the point.”
What a surprise: Daun was manipulating things. Pushing back my anger, I said, “Why would he do that?”
“He heard about your own troubles,” she said, motioning to my bandaged hand. “He understands how dangerous Hell’s magic is for mortals. He told me to protect you as best I could.”
My stomach rolled, then dropped down to my toes. Daun…wanted me protected? I’d been trying to convince myself that his warning about my co-workers getting killed had been nothing more than a come on — there’d been a time, not so long ago, when death had been titillating, almost an aphrodisiac, to me. Demons and bloodshed go hand in hand. But if Daun had sent Angel to me to watch my back — and given that it was a cherub telling me this, I knew it for truth — then there was something far bigger than Daun’s libido at work.
And that scared the living shit out of me.
No, this had to be Daun’s fucked up sense of humor. It had to be. “Why’d he send you?” I demanded. “If Daun’s so concerned, why didn’t he come himself?”
Angel met my gaze. Somberly, she replied, “The King of Lust has other responsibilities than one runaway former succubus.”
“The…”
Oh.
Oh.
Unholy Hell, Daunuan was the King of Lust.
I didn’t know whether I should be happy for him or worry for him. The current supreme ruler of the Abyss seemed to go through Lords of Lust the way a coke addict went through tissues. It was officially a toss-up whose life expectancy was shorter with Michael on the throne: Daun’s or mine.
“Well,” I said. “Daunuan, King of Lust. No wonder I couldn’t see his aura.” As a King of Sin, Daun was officially one of Hell’s elite. Which meant he now had an excuse for being a complete schmuck. The more power the nefarious obtained, the more assholish they tended to become. And Daun now had a boatload of power. No, make that a cruiselinerload of power.
Mental note: avoid Daun like a plague of Jehovah’s Witnesses.
“Okay,” I said, and then I said “okay” again. And then because I truly didn’t know what else to do, I started cleaning up the broken glass.
After I puked my guts up and splashed water on my face, I crawled back into bed. Angel sat by my side, stroking my hair. Buried in blankets, I shivered, and even the cherub’s gentle touch couldn’t comfort me. Thoughts swirled around my mind, all vivid colors and spiraling motions, like a drunken impressionist attempting to paint a straight line. Here, a whorl of white: Faith dancing, her fake wings fluttering. There, a comet trail of gold: Daun’s amber eyes sparkling with wicked thoughts. Now a burst of crimson: my scaled hand, twisted and coiled with muscle. A quiver of vulva pink: Chantinelle’s sensual lips, curling wantonly as she laughed. A crush of black as the walls came tumbling down to bury me and the homeless man I’d tried to save.
Worse than the colors of my thoughts were the feelings they dragged with them, weaving slowly together in a crazy quilt of emotion — thick, suffocating sensations that blanketed my heart and made breathing an exercise of agony. Images blurred; leaking through, emotions bled out, leaving me hollow and heavy-headed, shaking. And then it began again in a torment of color and feeling.
Too much. It was all too much. I squeezed my eyes closed, as if that would shield me from the kaleidoscope of color in my mind, from feeling like I was drowning. I gasped, a fish out of water. Too much.
Peaches whispered, Come on, Jesse. Don’t get overwhelmed. It’s only sensory overload if you make it so.
I can’t.
Meg’s voice now, bringing with it a flare of sky blue, a lick of nearly infinite power: You can.
What do you know? I pressed my hands against my head, trying to cut through the layers of blue that encased Meg’s words. You’re not even real. You’re a pigment of my imagination.
Come on, girl. You say you’re human, so do it like the humans do: one thing at a time. Baby steps.
I took a shuddering breath, and then another. The part of me that spoke with Meg’s voice was right. With baby steps, I could pull myself out of this quagmire of sensation. Biting my lip, I told myself that yes, I can do this.
With that decision, images locked in place, like puzzle pieces. I focused on each one intently, trying to decipher the feelings from the thoughts, the emotions from the ideas. One thing at a time.
I grabbed a thought, held onto it, took it deep inside of me: Faith.
A knot formed in my chest, and it hurt to draw in a full breath. Faith was dead. Mia, too, but Faith’s death hit me in a way that the other dancer’s hadn’t. Maybe that was because Mia had been a total bitch in life, and I really didn’t care that I’d never see her again, or listen to her complain about everyone and everything, or watch her cozy up to the men hanging over the tip rail and divert their gazes away from my stage show.
My lips peeled back in a sneer as I remembered my impotent rage whenever Mia would steal away my customers with a shake of her ass. As far as I was concerned, Mia got what she deserved. Good riddance.
But Faith…
My sneer softened, slackened. And my anger softened, too, leaving a sluggish feeling that wasn’t rage and wasn’t sadness but somewhere in between. A sense of hollowness. Pain without pain.
Faith was sweet. Funny. Someone I’d enjoyed bantering with. We weren’t friends—I didn’t have any friends—but she’d been more than just a co-worker. An acquaintance. Yes, that was the word. Acquaintance. I remembered how I’d seen her last night, the spotlight hitting her by mistake in an irreverent splash of red, then black. Faith hadn’t noticed the technical glitch. She’d been too busy making nice to the Doughboy. He’d never tuck another twenty in her halo.
My throat was dry, and my eyes stung with unshed tears. And I felt so very cold. I pulled the covers tighter, but I couldn’t stop shivering.
Faith was dead. And bless me, it hurt to think of it. Of her. It shouldn’t hurt. People die. That’s what they do. They live. They love. They die.
Why did this hurt? This was a stupid feeling. Make it stop.
Maybe I’d spoken aloud. Angel murmured something, nonsense words, soft and musical, as her hand kept brushing my hair from my face. I tuned her out.
Faith was dead. And Daun had been the one to tell me about it, in a roundabout way.
My stomach fluttered, and a hint of warmth tingled lower. No, I commanded myself: don’t get distracted. Think it through. I crossed my arms over my chest, flattening my breasts. Squashing my libido. Think, Jesse. Don’t just react. Think.
The tingles faded to tickles, then whispers that ghosted over my skin. The arousal settled back, but it was still there, waiting. I nodded to myself; that would have to do. It was better than me having an orgasm with Angel watching over me. That would probably give her a stroke.
Heh.
That eased me, allowed me to think of Daun stripped of his sex appeal, of the magical pull I still felt whenever I saw him. Just him: Daunuan the demon. He’d been the one to tell me that strippers, plural, were dying. Getting killed. He’d warned me not to get my throat slit, as if he actually cared about my well-being — about me staying alive and out of Hell.
It didn’t make sense. He’d warned me. Demons don’t warn people about imminent danger; they get some popcorn and kick back to watch the show, maybe place some bets. They sure as Sin don’t help people. And they definitely don’t send angels to act as watchdogs.
And yet, Daun had done all of that. And more: he hadn’t lied about the murders. What else hadn’t he lied about?
Pit swallow me, what if everything he’d said had been true?
My heartbeat pounded in my ears, and the knot in my chest both tightened and tingled: anticipation laced with fear. I heard Daun’s laughter, felt his breath on my neck. Lightning flashes of sensation over the insides of my thighs, my belly, my breasts. What if it was true, and he hadn’t made me want him? What if my body reacted the way it did around him, or just thinking about him, because I still wanted him? No tricks, no magic — just him, Daunuan?
I curled my legs tighter against my body. He lies, I told myself. That’s what he does. He’d promised me, months gone, that he’d leave me alone. Before that, he’d insisted that he and I were quits. He couldn’t even pull off a dramatic exit from my life without spoiling it with an over-the-top encore. He lies. Throwing in some truth just makes his lies more plausible, and he knows it.
So never mind how Daun had seemed surprised when I told him to stop making me eager for his touch. And more than his touch: eager for his hunger, his humor. For him. Lies, all of it.
Never mind that a small question nagged at me, asking me why Daun kept coming back to me. He could have any succubus, current or former, that he wanted. Humans were nothing more than dolls for him to play with. So why was I such a temptation to him? We’d been friends, perhaps, but that was long past. We’d been lovers, but that had never been about love. Demons don’t love.
Still some succubus in you, Daun whispers.
What if I was still a demon, and this human shell was just a façade? Pressed against my head, my hands trembled.
The angel touched my shoulder, asked if I was all right.
The question was so absurd that all I could do was laugh through my tears. I wasn’t human after all. Humans didn’t wield Hell’s power, however unintentional it was. Humans didn’t stop buildings from crashing down on them and squashing them flat. Humans didn’t magic up guns to shoot people who called them chubby.
I was losing my mind. I was losing my soul.
Curled like a shrimp, I whimpered. This was utter bleakness — my heart had been scooped out, leaving a gaping hole in me. Once again, my thoughts and feelings flowed together, faster now, tumultuous and growing until they reared up in a monstrous wave and thundered down on me. Drowning now, lost.
And then Paul’s warmth led me home.
I blinked as I came to myself, found myself in Paul’s embrace. His strong arms were wrapped around me, one hand stroking my back. His lips, warm on my brow. He murmured to me, his voice soothing and deep, telling me that it was all right, that he was here, that he loved me.
He loved me.
I sobbed in his arms, trembled against him, and he comforted me as I cried. I didn’t know whether I was crying out of loss, or fear, or something too elusive to name. But I let myself cry, and Paul held me as I gave voice to my despair.
# # #
Eventually, I was all sobbed out. I excused myself to go to the bathroom, and I made the mistake of looking at myself in the mirror. Yeesh. Whoever said that women were beautiful when they cried must have been dropping acid at the time. My eyes were red and puffy, my nose was leaking, and other than two hectic patches of color on my cheeks, my face was pallid. I was a fucking mess.
I splashed water on my face. Blotted it dry with a towel. Looked in the mirror again. Still scary. Earlier that morning, I’d tried to tap into the fickle magic in me to zap up a pretty face, and it hadn’t worked. Now the thought of accidentally touching that power made me queasy. I looked at my left hand, clenched it and released it. It was human. I was human.
For now.
Okay. I took a deep breath, blew it out. Time to start figuring out what in Hell was going on.
Paul and Angel were waiting for me in the kitchen. They sat at the small table, across from each other. Angel was taking delicate sips from a glass of something. Knowing her, it was milk. Ugh. Nasty stuff. Paul had a cup in front of him, too, but he wasn’t drinking. A third glass, filled with clear liquid, waited for me. Probably water.
Remembering how close I’d come to sealing a pact with Chelle in my nightmare, I shuddered.
“Sorry about that,” I said. It would have come out more sheepish if I’d had more energy. I sank into the chair between Paul and Angel. “I just…” What? Got overwhelmed by all the death, doom and destruction? Some former evil entity I was. My voice trailed off, and I shrugged, not knowing what to say.
“Nothing to be sorry about,” Paul said, his voice gentle. “You’ve had a hell of a shock.”
He had no idea how close to the mark his words had come. Angel must have decided to get to Valor by cutting across Discretion — she just sat, sipping her drink, watching me. Paul, too, but mostly me.
“I’m so sorry about Faith,” Paul said.
I wanted to say “Me too,” or “yeah” or even “thanks,” but the words just wouldn’t come. So instead I asked, “What happened to her?”
He grimaced. “Her throat was cut.”
I grew still, even though my heart started chugging double time. “Like Mia.”
“Yes.” Paul’s eyes hardened. “This should go without saying. But I want you to tell Kevin you’re quitting.”
Of course Paul wanted me to quit. My co-workers were getting killed. He was just trying to protect me. Still, his words felt like a kick to my stomach.
Paul must have seen my thoughts on my face. He took my hand, squeezed gently. But he didn’t say anything else, instead choosing to let the silence underscore his words.
Angel, however, decided to pipe up. “Stripping is considered a high-risk profession under normal circumstances.”
I shot her a disgusted look.
Unperturbed, she continued. “Considering that two of your fellow dancers have met their untimely demises in the past two days, it seems only reasonable that you no longer put yourself at needless risk.”
Neither of them got it.
I wanted to tell Paul that I wasn’t being stupid, or selfish. I understood there was risk involved, even without what happened to Mia and Faith. When you flash your body for a living, some people get it into their heads your body is available whenever they want it, and however they want it. And those people don’t like taking no for an answer. The bouncers at Spice were very good at their jobs. But most of the dancers carried protection in their purses, and I don’t mean condoms. Star had pepper spray. Candy had, appropriately enough, a Candy Stripe pocketknife. A sharp wit and killer smile don’t do much against someone bigger and stronger than you. And I now had a shiny gun in my not-quite-Prada bag.
But dancing…balanced me. It let me be me, let me revel in the desire I caused, without being unfaithful to Paul. It let me pretend I was still a creature of Lust, without damning my soul. When the spotlight hit me and the music filled the air, everything else faded. All my worries, about Michael and His madness, about loitering demons and looming Armageddon, gave way to the beating of drums, to the strumming of guitars.
“I have to keep dancing,” I said, like it was an epiphany. Maybe it was. When Paul opened his mouth to tell me why I was insane, I said, “No, hear me out.”
He settled back, watching me.
“I know there’s other ways to make money,” I said. “Bless me, as long as Caitlin keeps playing sugar momma, I don’t even have to work at all. But I need to work, now more than ever. I’m so alive when I’m dancing. When I dance, the world makes sense.” I spread my hands wide, pleading for him to understand. “Because it doesn’t, you know. Everything used to have its place, but then everything changed, and now bad things are coming. Some are already here. You know some of it — like what happened to Mia and Faith — but there’s so much more.”
I paused, biting my lip. What I was about to say would break an unwritten rule. Humans aren’t supposed to know the truth about Hell and Heaven, about the Nameless Evil and the Almighty. Telling Paul the truth might bring much more than Hell’s wrath upon me.
Once, I had asked Meg why the new King of Hell would force me back to the Pit if I ran away. I was just one demon, and a low-level one, at that; what sort of damage could one demon really do? And she’d replied that I knew too much to be allowed to roam free. “You could incite the mortals on Earth,” she’d said.
I thought of Meg in her armor, her sword pointing at my heart, her face set in stone. I remembered wondering whether oblivion would hurt. One of the last things I wanted was to invite judgment from the Furies for offering Paul a taste of forbidden fruit. I almost laughed at the thought of little ol’ me, upsetting the cosmic balance. Heady stuff for one former demon to contemplate.
But I had to tell Paul something. He deserved to know. And I needed to tell him. I wanted him to understand.
Paul waited.
Well, I had an angel sitting here. I figured if I started getting into the stuff that would result in one of the Erinyes flaying the skin from my bones, Angel would give me a heads up. I hoped. So I licked my lips, then said, “Demons are walking the streets.”
Paul drilled me with his gaze.
“You can’t see them,” I said, squirming, “but they’re there, tempting people, doing stuff that never used to be allowed.”
From the corner of my eye, I saw Angel’s lips press together tightly. She didn’t like what I was doing, clearly, but it also looked like she wasn’t going to stop me. I plowed ahead before I could talk myself out of it.
“It’s supposed to be that people choose to do evil things, and then when they die, demons bring their souls to Hell. But now that’s changed. Now demons are influencing people to actually be evil. They’re cheating.” I couldn’t help my sneer; the whole thing disgusted me. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. “And it’s not changing a blessed thing. The Nameless Evil still has Its eye on Earth, instead of on Hell. And —”
“Jesse Harris,” the angel said, a warning note in her voice.
My words choked on my tongue, and I stopped myself from speaking about Michael and Armageddon. I couldn’t do that. Not just out of fear that Meg or her sisters would come to rend my soul from my body — I wouldn’t burden Paul with the knowledge that we were all going to die in the near future, all due to the madness of an Archangel convinced He was doing the right thing.
Paul had to keep believing that fighting the good fight would help make a difference in the world. I wouldn’t be the one to rip away his ideals. Even if I was still a demon at my core, I couldn’t do that to him.
I met Angel’s gaze and I nodded, slightly. She returned the gesture.
“And?” Paul prompted.
It took me a moment to steel myself for what I was about to tell him. “And it’s not just the demons changing tactics. I’m changing too. There’s something wrong with me.”
Now Paul was frowning, and I could see the tension tightening his shoulders, his neck, working along his jaw. “Wrong how?”
“Magic wrong. And not just what happened with the robe.” Angel stirred, but she kept her curiosity to herself. “It stated when I got mugged yesterday. Which is totally unfair,” I huffed, “considering that I was really just defending myself.”
Paul’s eyes lit with rage.
“So there I was,” I said, “getting mugged, and the guy was going to take my favorite handbag, and then he insulted me. And I thought, really clearly, that I was going to kill him.” My voice low and serious, I said, “And then there was a gun in my hand. I almost killed him with it. I was going to shoot him. A lot. I didn’t, and the guy ran away. But I was going to. The gun’s still in my handbag.”
Paul said nothing as he looked at me, his expression unreadable.
I turned away, suddenly unable to face him. Picking up my glass, I said, “Today, I saw a demon try to convince a homeless man to kill himself. I was going to ignore it, but I just couldn’t. So I tried to help him. The man, that is,” I clarified, darting a glance at Paul, who continued to say nothing.
“And it was working,” I said, fiddling with my glass. “I was helping him. Just, you know, talking to him. And he was listening to me. It was all going to be fine. But then the demon got mad, go figure, and he made a building crash down on me. Well, not the whole building. The temporary construction platform. You know, the stuff painted blue?”
Paul was coiled in his seat, all but radiating fury. He nodded his head once, curtly, looking mad enough to spit fire.
“It all started coming down.” I shivered, remembering the feeling of almost being crushed, the feeling of the power bursting out of me. “But I held it back, for a little bit. I held it back. But then the man had a heart attack or something. His heart just stopped working, and he died, and it all started crashing down. But then Angel saved me, brought me home, safe and sound.” The man, not so much. I wondered what would happen to his body. Would it go to the M.E.’s? Would he have a spot next to Faith?
My throat was too dry; my body was too hot. I gulped down my drink. Water. Minus demon spittle. Shaking, I set the empty glass down on the table.
Paul was looking at the cherub, who blushed modestly (and prettily, of course) from his scrutiny.
“I slept for a bit, then,” I said. “When I woke up from a nightmare, all I could think of was how angry I was.” At Chelle, specifically. “And then I started…changing. Into a demon.”
Now Paul’s attention was back on me completely.
“Angel helped me, and I’m okay for now. But I was losing myself, Paul.” My voice broke, and I felt the tears coming before they spilled down my cheeks.
Paul took my hand in his, held it gently.
“I want to be human,” I said, feeling exhausted and scared and angry. “But I’m having these…moments…when I’m forgetting that I’m human. When it’s the demon talking. It’s getting so that sometimes, I don’t know who I am.”
“Jesse,” Paul said, my name tender on his lips.
“But when I’m dancing,” I said, “everything makes sense. When I’m dancing, there’s me, and there’s the music, and that’s all. I know what I am, when I’m stripping on stage. It’s like I can finally breathe.”
I brushed away my tears. “Paul, I have to keep dancing. I’m not asking for permission. I’m telling you. I have to keep dancing. For my sanity. For my sense of self.”
“If it matters,” Angel said, “my King has charged me with watching Jesse Harris.”
“See that?” I said. “Angel’s protecting me. I’m better off than the other dancers at the club.”
“Watching isn’t protecting,” Paul said.
“For celestials it is. Go on,” I said, “ask her. She’ll tell you so.”
“Angel,” Paul said slowly, not tearing his gaze from my eyes, “will you keep protecting Jesse, as she said? From falling buildings and from psychos with knives? You promise that if she keeps dancing, you’ll make sure she doesn’t get her throat slit?”
“Yes, Paul Hamilton,” Angel said somberly. “As long as I am watching her, no physical harm will come to her. I so swear it.”
“Fine.” Paul nodded, his face grim. “I don’t like your choice, Jesse. But I understand it. And as long as Angel’s watching your back, I support it.”
I wondered again why Michael wanted me protected when he really wanted me dead. But I made a mental note to ask Angel about that later, when Paul was otherwise distracted.
“What did Caitlin say?”
Whiplash alert. “Huh?”
“I asked,” Paul said slowly, “what did Caitlin say about your magic? When you called her earlier, like you said you would do?”
Oops. “I didn’t have time to call her.” Not a lie, at least.
“Fine,” Paul said, sounding not at all fine. It sounded like he was shouting, even though his voice was deadly soft. “Call her now.”
Would Caitlin understand what was happening? Would she help me, and not demand a piece of my soul in return?
Paul waited, storm clouds in his eyes. I saw the rage in him, trapped like a beast in a cage, pulsing beneath his skin.
My voice small, I asked, “Why are you so mad?”
“Oh, I don’t know, Jess. Maybe because you almost fucking died, and you didn’t tell me. Do you think that could have something to do with it?” His voice rose as he spoke, and now he was shouting: “A God-damned demon almost killed you, and you just mention it to me in passing about why you need to keep dancing!”
“Paul…”
He roared: “And you magicked up a gun? And almost shot someone dead with it?” He slammed his fist on the table, and I flinched.
“I didn’t do it on purpose,” I said softly.
“That’s not the fucking point! God damn it, Jesse!” He took a ragged breath. When he spoke again, his words were an angry buzz — furious, yet low, the wretched sound of a dying wasp. “How could you not tell me? How could you be going through all of this and keep it from me?”
I bit my lip. “I didn’t want to worry you.”
“You…” He clamped down on whatever else he was going to say. Grinding his teeth, he closed his eyes. A vein throbbed along his temple, and fury radiated from him in tight, hot waves.
“You are arguing,” Angel said, once again proving that she was keenly observant. “I should leave.”
“No.” Paul’s nostrils flared once, and then he opened his eyes. Cold eyes. Cop eyes. “Stay. I need some air. Before I say something I’ll regret.”
I didn’t know which cut me worse: his glare, or his words. “Paul…”
“Make sure she calls her sister,” he said to the cherub. “Before she conveniently forgets.” With that, he grabbed his jacket and stormed out of the apartment, slamming the door hard enough to make my teeth rattle.
Limbo is gray, and cold, and damp. The nothingness seeps into you, turns you into another part of it until you, like the place itself, are damp with sweat and fear and blood, and cold with death, with dread. And so very gray, as if you’ve long since rotted away from the inside out. Limbo makes Hell look positively friendly.
“Jezebel.”
The man’s voice is deep, melodious. All too familiar. My skin prickles with goosebumps as I turn in the nothingness to see a flash of emerald green eyes, a cap of raven-black hair. My heart drums wildly as I recognize Him — I know His presence intimately, not like a lover but deeper than that, more permanent.
My sire, who had granted me a soul. The Light Bringer, former sovereign ruler of the Abyss and friend of the Almighty. The One who understands Hell’s role far better than the creature that squats now on its throne. The angel of Death, whom all but six beings in the Universe fear like no other. First creation of God Himself.
The Archangel Lucifer smiles, His teeth perfect and white and gleaming.
My legs fail me, and I fall to the grayness, prostrating myself before Him. Terror floods through me, paralyzing me like venom. I wait, frozen in my fear, for the Morning Star to speak again.
The moment stretches into a minute. And longer. Around me, the silence breathes — inhaling to squeeze me in its clammy embrace, exhaling to raise the hairs on my neck. I want to shriek. I want to die. I can’t move, can’t think as the nothingness swirls around me, suffocates me. I shiver; I wait.
And I remember Meg’s words to me, months gone: Never, ever, feel anything for an Archangel but awe and dread.
Finally, Lucifer speaks again. “Jezebel. You have disappointed Me.”
A startled cry escapes my lips before I can trap it. Guilt wracks me, pulps my heart and leaves it a decimated mass in my chest. I stammer an apology, knowing it won’t matter. I’ve disappointed my sire. My liege. My king. Acid bubbles in my stomach, and my insides feel like they’ve caught fire.
“You have misused My gift.”
“Gift? Sire, I don’t understand…”
He doesn’t answer me. Another time, in a different Limbo, He and I spoke like this, like thoughts and feelings wrapped in intentions. But now, either He has turned a deaf ear to that connection we shared, or He doesn’t hear me.
I almost risk a glance at Him, but my body is twisted with fear and I can’t raise my head. I manage to squeak, “What gift, Sire?”
“My gift of humanity,” He says, His words proud, regal. “You have been mortal for five months. And what have you done with My gift?”
“Done, Sire?”
“You’ve wasted it.” I hear His anger now, feel His words vibrate with rage. “You act the part of a harlot and parade your body before other men.”
I taste bile on my tongue, swallow it down. My sire has judged me and found me guilty.
“You profess true love for one human, but you continue to be swayed by the touches of an incubus.”
Even now, I can feel Daun’s touch sliding over me. Into me.
Unholy Hell, I’m so sorry.
“You know nothing of love, Jezebel.”
There is a pause, thick with contempt. And in my mind, I hear Chelle, hear Daun, as they mock me, tell me that I don’t love Paul, that I only think I do. They were right, I realize; they knew, even when I didn’t. They knew that I don’t love Paul, that I only think I do.
My stomach lurches. Nauseous, I squeeze my eyes shut.
“You are a selfish thing. But then,” Lucifer says slowly, “I am being unfair.”
I hear His words, but all I can think of is the one I’ve wronged with my selfishness. Paul, love, I’ve been so unfair to you…
“When I offered you a soul,” Lucifer says, “it was for you to be truly human. And yet, though you do have a soul in that mortal body, Jezebel, you are not human, not really.”
Paul, you deserve someone so much better than me. Someone truly human.
“Your memory of Hell taunts you,” my sire croons. “Tempts you. Stops you from truly experiencing life as you should. As you could. As you still can.”
Numbly, I understand, finally, that I don’t love Paul as I should.
But, perhaps, I still could…
“You can know love as humans do,” Lucifer says, His voice like the sweetest music. “You can be truly human.”
I flash feverishly hot; I shiver with cold. Adrenaline, anticipation; a surge of hope that overwhelms my fear. Something close to desire warms me, heats me with longing.
I could love Paul as he should be loved. I could be truly human. Please, Sire, let me be human for my man. Tell me what I must do.
But He doesn’t hear my silent plea, and all I can say is one word: “Please.” It comes out like a gasp.
Lucifer speaks, and His voice washes over me, sweeps me away. “It is your memory of Jezebel that prevents you from being Jesse Harris. You can’t help but think like a succubus, even with that cute human soul.”
I’m drowning now, overwhelmed by possibility. But even as I’m pulled under, something about His words strikes a dissonant chord, jarring His hypnotic song.
“And though you are a selfish thing, I admit it was cruel of Me to offer such an imperfect gift. And so,” He says like wind chimes, “a chance at reparation.”
I want to look at Him, but I can’t bring myself to move. I whisper, “Reparation?”
“A chance for you to set aside the demon in you, Jezebel,” He says, and I can hear the smile in His voice. “A chance for you to be truly human.”
I’m so very cold. “What must I do?”
“Life is about choice, is it not?” He says this with a laugh — it’s a mocking sound, one so unlike His usual laughter. “That’s what makes humans so intriguing: their ability to choose.”
Something flashes before me, and I dare to lift my head enough to see a glass, filled with clear liquid.
“Choose your path,” Lucifer says, and there’s a hunger to His voice that wasn’t there before. “Are you still a creature of Hell? Or are you a human, with the ability to love?”
I stare at the glass in front of me. “Sire?”
“Before you now is the water of Lethe. You will choose your direction, and that will be your path, forever. You will choose, demon or human. You will drink. And,” He says, His voice solemn, “you will forget the path you leave behind.”
Oh.
Oh Gehenna. No.
“So tell Me,” He says. “Are you the human Jesse Harris? Or are you the demon Jezebel? Pick one, and then drink.”
Cold sweat beads on my forehead as I stare at the glass in front of me.
I’m dizzy now, as my thoughts trip over themselves and my head throbs. I don’t want to forget. I don’t want to lose who I was just for the chance of who I might yet be.
And yet…the chance to forget about Michael and Armageddon beckons. And more than that: the chance to give Paul what he deserves is tantalizing.
I stare at the glass in front of me.
Lucifer says nothing as He waits for my answer, but His impatience is thick in the gray air of Limbo.
My heart gallops in my chest, and I bite my lip. It’s a simple choice. Chocolate or vanilla. Black or white.
Demon or human.
I could forget all of my worries, my fears, with a word and a drink. And then I could truly be with Paul. No distractions. No regrets.
You’re completely wrong for each other, Daun whispers. And that’s why you still want me.
In my mind’s eye, I see Daun, the wicked gleam of his smile. He is my past, the personal evil that defines me.
And now I see Paul, the way his eyes sparkle like sunlight on the waves. I hear his laughter, deep and resonate. I feel his warmth. He is my future, my salvation. My love.
You don’t love him, Chelle insists.
But I can prove that I do. I can choose Paul, choose humanity — show Chantinelle and Daunuan and my sire that yes, I do know how to love, I do love Paul. That I can be, that I am, human.
All I have to do is choose. Demon or human: Daun or Paul.
I’ll always want one more than anything I’ve ever wanted before. And I want to love the other with all of my human heart and soul. Can I love one, completely, while I still lust for the other, unequivocally?
Can I ever be Jesse Harris if, at my core, I’m still Jezebel?
I stare at the glass in front of me. It’s a plain glass, and in it, the water of Lethe waits patiently.
What would forgetfulness taste like? Not as sweet as oblivion, surely. Not as sour as permanence. Would it coat my tongue as I drank? Would it slip down my throat too quickly for me to notice anything as fleeting as taste?
“Choose,” Lucifer says. “Your moment of destiny is here. Are you the human Jesse Harris? Or are you the demon Jezebel?”
Who am I?
Biting my lip, I stare at the glass in front of me.
And I wonder why my sire is giving me this choice.
Archangels are dangerous, the memory of Meg whispers. They don’t have emotions the way humans do. They’re all ego. And they’re concerned only with themselves.
Why is Lucifer doing this? Why now?
“Choose,” He says again, and now I hear the purr of threat in His voice.
Why would my sire threaten me?
Archangel He may be, but I know Him. I can still feel His kiss on my lips — a simple, affectionate kiss, one that had marked me in ways I still don’t understand.
I know Him.
Steeling myself, I look up and meet my sire’s dread gaze. His green eyes sparkle with mischief, and His lips are curled into a cruel smile. And through the nothingness of Limbo, a burst of red, like a smear of cherries. It surrounds Him in a bloody crown, then is gone.
And like that, I have my answer.
I take the glass, lift it up. “Cheers!” And with a smile, I throw the contents in Lucifer’s face.
He rears back, spluttering, rage dripping from him along with the water. “You dare?”
“For fuck’s sake, Chelle.” I cross my arms to keep them from shaking, and it’s a wonder that my voice is so calm. Inside, I’m screaming, puking my metaphoric guts up over how easily she’d almost snared me. Peaches, the voice of my conscience, had told me that my ambivalence was making it easy for Hell to tempt me. Pit swallow me, she — I — was right. I can’t keep the anger out of my voice when I say, “Enough already. You’re busted.”
Wiping liquid from His face, Lucifer laughs softly. It’s His laugh, and yet it’s not — there’s a sense of malice behind the humor that the true Light Bringer never had, not even when He wore the crown of Hell. Chantinelle doesn’t know Him the way I do.
“Well done,” He says…but it’s not His voice now, but that of the succubus Chantinelle. “I like your little display of recklessness at the end.”
“New Yorkers call it chutzpah,” I say. “So what’s in the glass? Your spit?”
“Among other things.”
“Enough of your fluid, mixed with my saliva from when I’d drink. A pact between us.” I rub my arms, but the gooseflesh won’t go away. Even in a dream — and now I recognize that this is, indeed, a dream — making a bargain with a demon is binding. “Clever. And I would have gotten what I’d wanted.”
“It’s not the water of Lethe, but you would have forgotten one of your pasts all the same. Demon or human, one of them washed away forever with a drink.” Chelle’s eyes gleam, poisonously green. “Which would you have picked, Jezebel? Would you have turned your back on Hell? Or would you finally have given up the pretense of humanity?”
I smile grimly, pretending that I wasn’t feeling sick to my stomach. “I’ll never tell.”
“Oh well. Until next time, then. And oh,” she added idly, “do let your man know that I’ll be seeing him tonight. I can’t wait.”
With a smile, Chelle winks…and now I’m looking at myself. My long, black hair is a mess of curls, and my naked body gleams with sweat. With sex. My green eyes are heavy with satisfaction, and my lips are swollen as if they’d been thoroughly kissed.
“I’ll do such things to him,” the other me says. “I’ll make him love me the way you made him love you. And then…” The not-Jesse in front of me purrs as she runs her hands over her breasts, thumbing the nipples. “Oh, and then.”
My eyes narrow as the doppelganger in front of me plays with herself. Paul had been fooled once before, when the queen of the succubi had clothed herself in my appearance and seduced him. I’d be blessed if I let it happen again, especially from some mid-level demon like Chantinelle. “Leave Paul alone.”
Chelle grins at me. “Jealous?”
“Staking my claim.”
“Your claim means nothing to me.”
“That’s your problem. You can’t have him.”
“Maybe I’ll let you watch when I’m with him, just like your angel friend is watching me with you now.” Chelle smiles, insinuating just how much she enjoys being watched. “You’ll be just as powerless to stop me as she is.”
The thought Angel with me now, somehow, comforts me. Any other time, I’d be dismayed that the cherub was becoming my celestial security blanket. “Maybe she doesn’t see you as a threat.”
“Oh, she does,” Chelle says as she runs her fingers through her hair. “Nightmares have their role, and even celestials must make way for us.”
I force myself to laugh in her face. “You’re full of yourself, aren’t you?”
“I know my place, Jezebel. Which is more than I can say about some of us.” She shakes her long curls away from her eyes, smiles hugely at me. “I think I’ll mark your man when I see him. Just a little something to let you know that he’s already mine.”
Rage knifes through me, white hot and deadly. “Don’t you touch him.”
“You can’t stop me.” She grins, revealing a nightmare mouth of shark’s teeth. “Do you know what scares him, Jezebel? Do you want me to tell you?”
“You stay away from Paul,” I say, my voice flat.
“Or what, Jezebel? You’ll threaten me?” She cups her face, widens her eyes. “Ooh,” she says, “I’m so scared.”
“Stay away from him,” I growl. “Or I swear to Pit and Paradise, I’ll kill you.”
For a moment, she stands frozen, her hands on her cheeks, her eyes caught in surprise. Then an ugly smile blooms on her face. “Oh, Jezebel,” she rumbles, her voice rattling my spine. “You’re very welcome to try. But know this: if you attack me, I’ll rip out your soul.”
I grin, my teeth clamped together to keep from screaming. “You’re very welcome to try.”
The succubus Chantinelle throws back her head and chortles, the sound like shattering glass wrapped in thunder. Laughing, she disappears…
# # #
…and with a gasp, I opened my eyes. I was in my bed, the covers pulled up to my chin, a pillow propped beneath my head. Sweat plastered my curls to my brow, and even though the blankets were tucked around me, I shivered. Taking a slow, steady breath, I commanded my heart to get out of my throat and back down to my chest where it belonged.
“Jesse Harris?”
Blinking, I turned to see Angel looking down at me, her brow creased with worry. “Angel,” I said, my voice cracking. Chelle had been right about the cherub watching me.
Bless me, had she been right about anything else?
Demons lie, I told myself. Even so, I couldn’t stop shaking.
Angel placed a cool, pale hand on my forehead. “You were groaning in your sleep. Your heart rate is too high, as is your blood pressure.” Frowning at me, she said, “Did you have a bad dream?”
“A Nightmare,” I said, drawing some small comfort from the angel’s touch. “Her name is Chantinelle, and she used to be a succubus.”
Angel turned her head sharply, glancing around the room. “I don’t sense any other nefarious here.”
“She’s gone.” I closed my eyes, said, “But she’ll be back.” Paul was her client, so she’d be back.
(make him love me)
But I’d be damned if I’d let her touch him.
(the way you made him love you)
I still shook, but now it wasn’t with the remnants of fear. Chelle had all but promised that she’d try to seduce Paul instead of just scare him, that she would mark him.
“Jesse Harris?”
I sat up, my fists clenched, feeling the rage soar through me. So she thought she could take my man? That I’d just sit back and cower while she —
(fucks him and fucks him and)
— made her move? That I’d just bemoan his fate, and mine, and let it end at that?
Over my dead body.
“Jesse, please…”
You want to try, Chelle? You want to leave your mark on my man? Game on, cunt. I’ll wipe the floor with your face. I’ll tear your lips from your mouth and shove them down your throat. I’ll —
My head rocked back.
I blinked, then rubbed my stinging cheek. What the…?
(hit you she hit you the bitch the prissy do-gooder bitch hit you)
Slowly, I pivoted my head to look at Angel, her hand cocked back to slap me again, her eyes wide with fear.
(kill her)
I felt my lips peel back into a parody of a grin.
“Your hands, Jesse,” she said, her voice shaking. “For the love of God, look at your hands.”
“I don’t love God.” My voice was a thing of horrors, and I giggled as I imagined the cherub’s blood on my lips. “And He doesn’t love me.”
“Jesse,” she said again. “Please.”
Maybe it was because she said “please.” I tore my gaze away from her terrified face —
(so scared so delicious so)
— and looked down at my lap, where my left hand was still curled into a fist. And I stared at the warped, taloned thing that was my hand. Scaled and red and roped with muscle, it was the hand of a demon.
No no no no no…
“Jesse,” the angel said, her voice far away, “fix it. Be human, Jesse Harris.”
My bloodlust evaporated, poof, all gone, leaving my mouth dry and my head pounding. I was dimly aware that someone was screaming.
“Let your body show your humanity,” the angel said firmly.
How? I stared at the thing where my hand should be. The fingers unclenched, revealing the gouges in the crimson palm where its claws had dug in. Nothing human there. Nothing with a soul. Just a monster made flesh. Just the paw of a demon. My head throbbed; my body shook.
“Fix it, Jesse Harris.”
“I can’t, I can’t,” I gibbered, “this can’t be happening, I’m human now, human!”
“Fix it,” she said again, so very patiently.
Panic, now, settling into my bones. “I don’t know how, I don’t know what to do, I don’t — ” My voice hitched, ending on a sob. I can’t be a demon, I can’t, not if I’m human, not if I’m with Paul. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t —
Angel clasped the bestial thing that was my hand in hers. And she said, “I believe in you, Jesse Harris. You can do this.”
How could she sound so patient? Didn’t she see that my world was unraveling? I screamed, “I don’t know how!”
“Yes,” she said simply. “You do. Be human.”
As if I had a choice. As if I could control whatever was happening to me. But look at my hand. Look at the power I’d wielded. I wasn’t human, I was some sort of —
(half-breed)
— thing with a soul that could touch the magic of Hell. I was warped. I was lost. I was…
“Jesse,” the angel said.
I rolled my eyes toward her as I desperately clawed onto what was left of my humanity. Shaking, I pleaded for help.
She smiled at me, her eyes filled with compassion. “Be human.”
Be human. Was it as simple as that?
Sucking in a breath, I closed my eyes. How did I think myself human again? It wasn’t a question of physiology; I knew the way the pieces should fit. It was a mindset, a decision, an expression of will. A choice.
I tried to think of myself as human, but as I did, Chelle’s words whispered to me, infected me: Though you do have a soul in that mortal body, Jezebel, you are not human, not really.
And in my heart, I knew she was right. At my core, I was still a demon, no matter how much I wished for humanity.
So instead, I thought of the one who made being human worth all of the pain, all of the frustration — the one who was worth my soul. I thought of Paul, his sensual smile, his expressive eyes. His broken nose. I thought of the way his hands felt on my body, of the way he made me feel.
And more: I thought of his laughter, his warmth. His joy. I thought of how good it felt to be snuggled in his arms. How I enjoyed listening to his heart drum in his chest and catch snippets of his singing in the shower, over the rush of falling water. I thought of his innate goodness, of his desire to help others and protect the ones who couldn’t protect themselves. I saw him, my White Knight, my love.
My Paul, holding me close. My man, showing me the way.
My love.
“Jesse,” the angel said, and I heard the delight in her voice. “You did it. Well done.”
Letting out a shaky breath, I opened my eyes. On my lap, my hand — my very human hand — was clasped in Angel’s.
“Thank you,” I whispered, letting my eyes slip closed again. I couldn’t stop shaking, couldn’t turn of my thoughts. Too many questions; too many fears.
With her other hand, Angel touched my cheek, and that was when I realized I was crying. “There’s nothing to thank me for,” she said, her voice like music. “You were the one who made it right.”
It hadn’t been me at all. It was Paul — his presence, his strength, branded upon my heart. He anchored me. Completed me.
Satan spare me, I sounded like a greeting card.
We stayed like that, Angel and I, with her touching my face, and me clutching onto her hand, until my body stopped trembling. When I opened my eyes, I saw her lovely face before mine, looking serene and sad, and far too knowing.
“Angel,” I said, “what’s happening to me?”
Maybe, if the phone hadn’t rung just then, she would have answered me.
Angel squeezed my hand, then released it. I stared at it, as she went to answer the phone, and I frowned as I inspected it for damage, for imperfection. It looked the same as it has these past five months: delicate, long fingers, tapered nails (that needed a polish — mental note: make appointment with manicurist), birthmark just beneath the last knuckle. On the palm, all the various lines that human seers put so much stock into crossed haphazardly. Vaguely, I wondered if Caitlin’s life line and love line and whatnot were the same as mine. If I saw a palmist, would it be my future that they saw in my hand, or my sister’s?
I heard the angel answer the phone, but Peaches was whispering in my head, muffling Angel’s words.
For the love of all that’s unholy, call Caitlin about your magic before something bad happens.
Would Caitlin understand what was happening? Would she help me, and not demand a piece of my soul in return? Bless me, for all I knew, she or one of her fellow witchy chicks was causing my…whatever it was. Maybe the Hecate had decided to do more than help me accessorize with magic jewelry.
“Jesse?”
I looked over at Angel, who was holding the cordless phone to me.
“It’s Paul. For you,” she added, as if there had been the possibility that Paul had been calling to speak to her.
That made me smile. Whatever else happened, Angel would always be naïve to the point of immense entertainment on my part. Murmuring my thanks, I took the phone from her and said hello to my man.
“Jess, I want you to stay home, with Angel.” Paul’s voice was cold, flat. His cop’s voice. “I’m on my way.”
Over the warning bells in my head, I said, “Love? What’s wrong?”
He paused, as if wrestling with what to tell me. “I went to the M.E.’s,” he finally said. “And I saw the body. I had meetings with Reilly and other brass, or I would have called sooner.” Another pause, this one longer. “Jesse, I’m sorry. It’s Faith, from the club.”
“What?” I said, not understanding his words. What was Faith? Why would she have been at the medical examiner’s office? Did she know the person who’d been killed?
And then it hit me.
“Oh,” I said, all the strength leaking out of me.
Oh, Gehenna. Faith was dead. I’d just seen her last night, when she was dancing for her faithful posse. Faith with her white on white good looks and her angel motif. Faith, who’d truly enjoyed dancing.
The room had begun to spin. I leaned back against the headboard and closed my eyes. It occurred to me that I didn’t even know if Faith was — had been — her real name.
Paul’s voice, cutting through my dizziness: “I’m so sorry, hon.” Then, softer: “I love you, Jesse. I’ll be home soon.”
He disconnected, and I listened to the line buzz.
“Jesse Harris?” Angel said. “Are you well?”
I pressed the button that turned off the phone, and handed it to the cherub. “Excuse me,” I said. “I have to go throw up. Again.”
The cherubs flocked out of the studio faster than credit cards got maxed out on Black Friday. I was tempted to rein in Angel, but she’d looked so eager to go out into the world and try a come-on line that I couldn’t bring myself to stop her. What Paul didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.
I called home. No answer.
An unsettling combination of unease and anger tightened my chest. I was pissed that Paul had been gone for hours on our long-awaited day off; I was unhappy about what that possibly meant.
Strippers were dying, Daun had said. Plural. And getting pluraler.
Maybe it wasn’t someone I knew, lying on a cold table at the M.E.’s. Maybe Paul had stayed behind to help out. He was a White Knight; he did inconvenient shit like that.
I stepped out of the studio, glad to find that Angel had taken care of paying for the rental. It took me a minute to orient myself; turns out, the studio was less than a mile from Paul’s apartment.
And a-walking we will go.
The dance lesson had done wonders for my mental state; the mindfuck Daun had laid on me seemed more like a bad dream than anything else. Problem was, that made me think of Chantinelle and her sultry promise to haunt Paul for the rest of his life.
It’s never a good thing when you find yourself thinking about the other woman in a relationship.
I let my mind wander as my feet brought me closer to home. Lunchtime, Midtown Manhattan on a Wednesday: lots of people out and about, running errands, grabbing food, buzzing about their lives. Tons of traffic. Horns blared; people chattered, on cell phones, to one another, to themselves. The air had a blustery chill to it that absorbed the bulk of the city smells, reducing the exhaust and food to pockets of odor, catching them in small doses as I passed stores and stands and crossed the street against the light. Around me, the crush of humanity pressed on, with an underlying sense of hurry, hurry, hurry. Just another workday.
For demons too. I spotted three of them, clinging to shadows, waiting to ensnare unsuspecting humans. Even though it made my stomach churn — the thought of the infernal using their power to influence innocent humans into committing acts of evil made me sick—I lowered the brim of my hat and moved past them. No matter how much I loathed it, the demons had their job to do.
(easy how easy it is)
And I had mine: stay alive. I had to look out for my own best interests, and that didn’t include me getting into other people’s business — especially considering that if I did anything rash against the demons, they could claim my soul. Mortals would just have to fend for themselves and do their best to avoid temptation, just like me. Life goes on.
Hey, I never said I was a hero. I’m dating one.
(how easy it is to influence you)
Ugh.
Daun’s voice, smug, insistent: You ever wonder why your man fell head over heels for you?
In my pockets, my fists clenched. Fucking Daun, with his breathy chuckles and quiet promises, Daun and his “You still want me” whine. He was worse than a broken record.
I wondered if Paul remembered records. The thought made me giggle.
That was close.
Well, well. Peaches returns. I crossed the street to head up to Madison Avenue.
You’re making it easy.
I have no idea what you’re talking about.
Sure you do, my conscience insisted. You keep flopping back and forth, all “I love Paul” but “I want Daun.” All “I’m human and I have a soul” but “I miss being a demon.”
I don’t miss being a demon.
Liar.
I don’t.
Your ambivalence makes it easy for Hell to tempt you.
It’s not ambivalence, I grumbled. It’s called coping. It’s not easy being a —
(half-breed)
— former demon.
I couldn’t see Peaches, but I could hear the eye-rolling in her tone. It’s called whining. Get over yourself, Jesse. And for the love of all that’s unholy, call Caitlin about your magic before something bad happens. Something worse than you almost killing someone.
Figures you’d be on her side.
For fuck’s sake, girl, stop being a stubborn idiot.
Time stopped as I halted in my tracks. Meg?
Silence. Peaches had vamoosed.
I slowly started walking again, somewhat grateful that I hadn’t done my Time Stands Still routine in the middle of an intersection. Cautiously, I reached out with my mind, trying to turn on the psychic connection I’d once shared with my best friend. But nothing happened. I didn’t even get a burst of mental static. It wasn’t that the connection had been cut off; it was like there had never been one in the first place. Meg, wherever she was now, was way out of touch.
Besides, I was just kidding myself. Peaches wasn’t Meg. Peaches had told me so. I was going to listen to what the voice in my head told me.
Mental note: consider possibility of schizophrenia.
A commotion on the corner pulled me out of my dark thoughts: a street person was demanding money, or getting belligerent with the passersby, or maybe had found God and was Hell-bent on converting the masses. I couldn’t tell from where I was; the corner buildings had neon blue temporary walls and roofs shrouding them, signaling major construction within, and grumbling New Yorkers were flowing around the construction in rows three deep. Over the sound of traffic, the person’s voice warbled out like the desperate mating call of a diseased bird: a high-pitched whine, peppered with venom and despair.
Whatever; just more city flotsam. I weaved my way around people as I headed up the block, wondering when Paul would be coming home, and how much time we’d actually spend together on our day off.
Chelle’s voice, mocking: He dreams about love, you know. But he doesn’t dream of you.
Her laughter pealed in my mind, slowly deepened until now it was Daun’s low chuckles. You and Shoulders aren’t just opposites. You’re completely wrong for each other.
The thing that makes demons so terrifying is that they have ways of getting into your brain, of holding everything you care about in an unflattering light. Of making you question everything you believe.
I love Paul.
Chantinelle and Daunuan, their laughter blending into a seductive tune: You only think you do.
Nonsense. And to prove it, I’d buy Paul a gift, something huge, something marvelous. Something much better than the jacket I’d given him for Christmas. It would be something he’d love to pieces and would know, every time he looked at it, just how much I loved him. I’d get him something he truly wanted. I’d get him…
Huh.
(you don’t)
I pressed a hand to my brow, tried to rub away my latest headache.
(you don’t love him)
As it dawned on me that I had no idea what to buy for Paul, the street person’s voice rang out:
“Get away! Evil! Evil! Get back! Evil!”
Even though my head was pounding, curiosity got the better of me. What was passing for street evil these days? And did it still wear Prada?
Backed up against one of the blue construction walls, a homeless man — woman? Between the hood pulled up and the oversized grimy coat, who could tell? — was panting, clearly terrified. A red aura flashed around him — yes, him, I could see that now — first red, now black, pulsing in sync as he crooked his fingers against the Evil Eye. Waste of time; that never worked, not unless you were a magician or witch with real power. Throngs of pedestrians moved by, ignoring the shrieking person…
…let alone the hulking demon closing in on him.
Oh no.
It was a giant of a man, naked, layered with muscle, a thing of chiseled perfection. Based on how perfectly proportioned the body was, I assumed it was a creature of Pride. They take more time to get their human appearance just right than makeup artists do on their starlet of the moment. None of the other pedestrians noticed as the thing took a hulking step toward the cowering man, whose aura flared red, now black.
He was going to die.
(he’s already dead)
The demon was going to kill him. He was going to convince the homeless man to kill himself. Maybe throw himself in front of a bus, or just drink himself to death.
(ignore the aura)
He was going to die. And I was just standing there, watching.
(ignore the man)
My first thought was to keep walking. Ignore him. Don’t get involved. Leave people to their own devices. Their own choices. The demon couldn’t hurt him, not unless he chose to listen.
“I got God on my side,” the homeless man cried, surrounded in a nebula of black.
And the demon replied: You only think you do.
My eyes narrowed. Fucking demons.
Before I could stop myself, I veered off to the left and marched up to the breathing rag pile of a human. The smell hit me before I got within ten paces: the stink of filthy clothes and an unwashed body, layered in a sheen of fear.
(yum)
I ignored the stench — and how part of me reveled in the sickeningly sweet odor of the man’s terror — and said to him, “You don’t have to listen.”
Frantic eyes rolled up to stare at me.
You have to listen, the demon laughed, because I’m telling you what no one else will.
“I got to listen,” the man told me, even though his yellowed eyes pleaded with me to help him shut out the voice.
You’re just a street thing, not good enough for anyone else. You’re nothing.
“I’m nothing,” the man said, his voice small. Helpless.
(so helpless so easy to crush to kiss to kill)
“That’s not true,” I said firmly, taking the man’s filthy hands into my own. “You can make your own choice. You matter.”
The demon’s breath, hot on the back of my neck. She lies!
“They lie,” I said, my voice soft. “Their words sound true, and they can worm their way into your heart. But they’re lies.”
“It’s right behind you,” the man wheezed.
“So what? Let it stay there,” I said, sounding far more confident than I felt. “It can’t hurt you, not unless you let it.”
But I can hurt you.
Eek.
Okay. This is me, ignoring the pissed off demon with the big, scary teeth. Because it can’t hurt me. No matter what it says, it can’t hurt me.
Gehenna, please don’t let it hurt me. I’m not a brave ex-demon. I fear pain.
“Your hands are cold,” I said to the homeless man. “Here.” I peeled off my black leather gloves and handed them to him.
He stared down at them, then back up at me. Suspicion replaced the gleam of fear in his eyes. “You some sort of Good Samaritan? You looking for something in return?”
“Just trying to help you get warm.”
“You making a pass?”
Heh. “Maybe after you cleaned up some, we could talk about it.”
“Go figure, Brooks Brothers went and ran out of my size.”
Claws scraped along the back of my neck.
Pit swallow me, my legs wanted to turn to rubber. The only thing keeping me from screaming was how the filthy man wasn’t noticing the demon anymore. He was too busy staring at the gloves I offered.
“Tell you what,” I said, my voice steady. “Take the gloves, then we’ll talk about the rest of your outfit. Because sweetie? The rags don’t do much for your eyes. Handsome guy like you should play up his best features. When’s the last time you ate?”
“Why? You going to take me on a hot date? I don’t put out unless there’s dessert too.”
I let out a laugh, and then so did the walking rag pile. He had a good laugh.
It was going to be all right. I’d give the guy some money, maybe try to convince him to go to a homeless shelter. Around us, humanity flooded along, completely unaware of the teensy conflict between Good and Evil that had just taken place. Well, okay, the teensy conflict between Once Evil and Still Evil. The whole “Good” thing was totally questionable.
Maybe some of Paul’s do-gooder was rubbing off on me.
Ugh. No, this was definitely a one-time gig. I was much happier being a self-centered former malefic entity.
I was about to dig through my purse for my wallet when behind me, the demon roared. You think you can just steal him away? I’ll kill you first!
Oh shit.
“Oh shit,” said the homeless man, looking up.
Overhead, something went CRACK!!! It was a deafening sound, one that went right to my bones and rattled my teeth. In slow motion, I looked up to see the temporary platform above us tremble, split down the middle, and then come crashing down.
Into the thunder I screamed NONONONONO —
# # #
— and power surges out of my body taking shape around me through my arms and it’s shielding us in white light the shield is barricading us and AAAAAAAAAH it hurts it’s a crushing force slamming down against it against oh Sire the wreckage will grind us to dust and dust to dust and it’s all thunder echoing and booming like the cannons of Armageddon —
…jesse…
— like it’s the end of everything the end and I hear the man’s screams and I smell his fear his sweat his filth and it fills me like magic and bless me the fear tastes so good —
…Jesse…
— and my arms tremble from exertion I feel every pound every breath of pressure grinding down on me and I’m on one knee now doubled over as the weight presses down and I’m screaming and the man is screaming and —
…Jesse Harris…
— the man’s screams cut short with a grunt and I hear his heartbeat ratatatatatting and then I hear it come to a sudden ungracious stop and his last breath gurgle from his lips as his body hits the pavement and I hear that too and now I see the blood pooling under him.
I stop screaming.
I breathe in and taste blood and dust.
And I hold my breath.
Over me the wreckage groans and whines and tries to flatten me like a bug crush me like it should have done because I shouldn’t have this magic it shouldn’t be flooding me and filling me and Gehenna how it hurts.
And my lungs burn and my chest aches, but I can’t let my breath go.
My power stutters.
I can’t let go.
The ruins above me press down.
And down.
I don’t want to die.
And echoing in the stillness of destruction and death, I hear: Jesse Harris, I have you.
Pressure clamps down my outstretched hand and I scream as power shrieks through me lifting me shifting me transforming me and —
Let it go, the voice tells me.
So I let the power go.
And the whole thing comes crashing down.
# # #
I felt myself get pulled through the wreckage like a ghost caught on a hook. I passed through everything, the wood and metal and plastic that were now nothing more than so much garbage, and once through the piles of rubble I passed through the people, the ones loitering and pointing, the ones frantic and helping. I passed through all of them like smoke, because to them I wasn’t real. I was out of phase with their world.
Cool.
It should have hurt; being insubstantial didn’t mean you didn’t feel the pressure of passing through solid things. It should have felt like getting wrung out by a pair of monstrous, calloused hands and then being slapped onto a clothesline to dry into a brittle sheet that cracked in a strong wind.
It might have hurt. But I was numb. And sort of giddy.
On I flew, tugged through people and places and things. Nouns, see me and despair, for I will pass over you like the Angel of Death did to the homes of the Jews that night in Egypt. Fear me, for I am the ghost of strippers yet to come.
It was possible that I was going into shock.
I flew, soaring more rapid than an eagle to the one who’d called me by name. Now Demon, Now Dancer. Now Jesse the Vixen.
Yeah. Shock was sounding likely.
Over the trees and through all the wood, to Jezebel’s house we gooooo —
Through a wall and home again, home again, jiggity jig. I hovered in the living room, speared by the light fixture, noticing all the dust at the top of the bookcase and picture frames. Paul’s tall, he should dust. Paul. Tall. Hee. I made a rhyme.
I’ve heard of being drunk with power. But being drunk after power?
Hey, there’s Angel. What’s she doing down there? And why’s she upside-down? And why doesn’t she have any dark roots? That’s totally unfair.
She frowned, or maybe smiled (tough to tell, what with being upside-down), and then down I went, topsy-turvy until I was swaying in front of her, my feet sort of on the floor. Maybe a teensy bit over the floor. I wasn’t very good at this ghost thing.
Angel was definitely frowning, and squinting, and then she brightened and said “Ah!” She nodded…
…and gravity and solidness and space came rushing back inside of me, crushing me like an empty beer can, weighing me down and filling me out until I thought I would scream…
And then it was done. I was real again. I was alive. I was…
…whoa.
I wavered on my feet, and the angel caught me as I slumped forward. And then I puked.
When I was done retching, I leaned against the angel. “Thank you,” I said. It came out more like “Thnnngyuh.” I was too exhausted to try to speak clearer. My limbs tingled with magic after shocks, my arms and legs twitching as if they’d been Tasered. I felt like I’d run a marathon and then hit a brick wall.
“You’re welcome, Jesse Harris,” Angel said, her voice like a ray of sunshine. “My King will be pleased that you are well.”
That seemed rather funny, given that Michael would best be pleased to see my head on a spike, dripping blood all over his pristine white marble hall.
Blood pooling beneath me, like it did to the man who smelled badly and tried to fend off a demon and died when I tried to help him.
My chest hurt.
“Jesse Harris, can you stand?”
I didn’t even know his name.
My eyes were stinging and my eyelids were too heavy, and all I wanted to do was sleep for a million years. But if I closed my eyes, I knew I’d see the homeless, nameless man staring at me.
I’d told him the demon couldn’t hurt him, not unless the man let it. I’d lied to him. I was no better than the demons, come slumming for souls. Maybe I was still a demon.
I thought I heard Daun laughing.
(still some succubus in you)
My head pounded, pounded, and I thought my brain would explode.
Pit and Paradise…what was I?
“Jesse Harris,” the angel said, her voice like falling snow, “are you hurt?”
Too much…it was all too much.
I tried to ask why she couldn’t be the guardian angel for the homeless man, too, and why she’d left his body to be buried in mounds of rubble. I wanted to ask why she’d waited until after the demon attacked before she’d stepped in to help. I wanted to hug her for saving my life; I wanted to slap her for discarding his. I loved her. I hated her. I hated myself for still being alive. And I thanked Gehenna that I was still breathing.
All of this, in a heartbeat.
My thoughts spiraling away, I managed to ask, “The man?”
Angel understood. Of course she did; she was an angel. “He was already dead,” she said sadly.
“Your timing sucks,” I whispered, and then I passed out.
It took me three minutes to give Paul the basics: Daun had made an appearance to drop a hint about strippers dying, and he’d gotten the two detectives to perform like they were on stage for a sex hypnotist.
Okay, so I’d mentioned that last part first. That’s why it had taken me three minutes to tell Paul everything; he was doubled over laughing for most of it. But he’d sobered quickly when I told him about Daun’s warning. It still amazed me how quickly Paul’s expressive eyes turned cold and flat when he put on his cop face.
I didn’t tell him about how Daun had almost gotten to me. Some things, boyfriends aren’t meant to know. Like how demons were intangibly running amok in the city, temping people to do very bad things. Or how Paul himself was marked as a Nightmare’s client. I mean, really, how was that conversation supposed to start? “Honey, FYI, the King of Hell is letting demons influence innocent people into committing acts of evil, an incubus that I used to fuck on a regular basis was making moves on me, and oh, by the way, you’re going to have horrific nightmares for the rest of your life, courtesy of one of my former co-workers. Let’s have sex!” Meh, pass.
Well, not the sex part. I was all for that. But with the way my luck had been going lately, it would probably get interrupted.
Armed with the information that the dead woman might be an exotic dancer, my White Knight wanted to charge off to the medical examiner’s to view the body. There was one thing stopping him: me. Specifically, his suddenly obsessive need to bottle me up and tuck me away, safe and sound.
“I’ll drop you at home,” Paul said.
“It’s okay, I can get a cab — ”
“I said I’ll drop you at home.”
“But — ”
“Jesse.”
That was a don’t-fuck-with-me tone if I’d ever heard one. Paul Hamilton, Papa Bear. It was sort of bemusing. The problem was, it was also pissing me off. I didn’t want my White Knight locking me up in a tower to keep me safe from dragons. In my world, the dragons came for you no matter where your hero stashed you away. The phrase “safe as houses” means jack shit to entities that materialize wherever they want to be.
“Wait,” I said, remembering a conversation from last night. “I have an idea.”
Paul arched a brow, but said nothing. He waited.
I closed my eyes and thought as hard as I could: Angel, you there?
Like a snowflake brushing against my mind, I heard her reply: I am here, Jesse Harris.
If you and your sisters are free now, I can do the lesson.
Yes, of course we can. A pause, and then: But what of your day off with your man?
On hold, I thought at her. Who knew thoughts could sound so growly?
Ah. My apologies.
Could you pop by where I am? Maybe tell Paul that, I don’t know, that you’ll be my guardian angel or something? He’s a tad skittish.
He’s overprotective of you because he loves you, Angel said. Yes, I understand. And of course.
And like that, a breath of cold wafted over me. Then Angel’s voice, out loud, “I am here, Jesse Harris.”
“Jesus!” That was Paul, sounding startled. Oops. Should have given him a heads up.
I opened my eyes and smiled at my man, who was staring at the cherub. “Love,” I said, “I’m going to hang out with Angel for a bit. So you don’t have to worry about me.”
He frowned, considering. Paul knew all about Angel being, well, an angel, ever since he and I both came back from Hell and lived to tell the tale. And the whole bam! instant appearance thing was pretty impressive to mortals, even those in the know.
“I’ll make sure she comes to no physical harm,” Angel said, smiling beatifically.
Paul looked like he was chewing a mouthful of glass, but he said, “Okay.”
“Goody.” I stood on my tiptoes and wrapped my arms around his neck, gently tugging him down to me. Then I planted a solid, spine-melting kiss on his lips. When we both had to break for air, I murmured, “More to come later.”
He smiled. “Much more.”
Ooh.
A softer kiss, and then he was gone, off to look at a body that I hoped wasn’t someone from Spice.
“Well now,” I said to Angel. “Where will we have the lesson?”
She smiled (radiantly, of course) and said, “I’ll take you there now.”
The cherub put a delicate hand on my shoulder. Energy rippled over me, familiar and yet oppressive — stepping through reality was a cakewalk when you weren’t mortal, but when you had blood and bone and solid internal organs traveling with you in a sack of flesh, things got a little wrenching. Actually, based on my stomach, more than a little wrenching. Ugh.
Before I could focus on just how unhappy my belly was with instant materialization, we were suddenly elsewhere. I had a moment to blink and take in the basics — dance studio, complete with mirrors and a balance a stereo system and a group of celestials flocked together like pigeons on a phone wire — before my stomach gave a mighty lurch and I unceremoniously stumbled to the polished wooden floor and puked.
Hands gently brushed my black curls away from my face. I would have said thanks, except I was too busy vomiting. My guts twisted and heaved, again and again, until there was nothing left to come up. Shuddering, sweating, I clutched my belly and groaned, helpless in the wake of such violent purging.
“She doesn’t have much stamina, does she?”
I glowered at the speaker, an upsettingly gorgeous woman with caramel skin and jet-black eyes. Even without her inhuman beauty, I could tell she was an angel; her aura flitted about her like snowflakes in a breeze, coldly perfect, pristinely innocent. Her black hair was coiled intricately around her head, and her lips shone like fresh raspberries.
She was also dressed like John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever — screamingly white pantsuit with an open-necked black butterfly-collared shirt and black shoes. I expected her to point up to Heaven with one hand and cock back her hip any second. In fact, all seven angels in the halo were dressed the exact same way, one even going so far as to mimic John’s haircut. I bet she would speak with a Brooklyn accent.
My annoyance evaporated, and I felt my mood lighten as I grinned. Oh, this was going to be fun. “Hey,” I said to Angel, “you didn’t tell me this would be a costume party.”
The angel who’d commented on my constitution sniffed her disdain. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”
“I’m sure,” I agreed happily.
Next to me, Angel coughed. I noted that she’d magicked away my vomit, and bless me if my breath didn’t smell like peppermint. Thanks, I thought at her as I pulled myself to my feet.
You are welcome. Be warned, Jesse Harris. Some of my sisters are…
Prissy? Bitchy? Uptight?
…I was going to say temperamental.
That too.
I began to pace, looking my charges up and down as I walked. Proud to a fault, all of them, and I didn’t need my flaky aura-reading ability to tell me so. You could see it from the way they held themselves, from the set of their eyes, their mouths. From how they seemed so untouchable. No one but an angel could pull off a white pantsuit in March and make it look classy.
I quickly realized that I had no idea how to teach a dance class. Then again, I never really set about learning how to dance; I just let my body move to the music. All right. Intros.
“I’m Jesse Harris. The former demon Jezebel. Current exotic dancer. From what I understand, even though you’re supposed to be Seducers, you’re having some trouble with the actual seducing. Is that right?”
As one, the halo nodded.
“And none of you have actually popped your celestial cherry, right?”
The angels looked at one another. A tentative hand inched up, and I nodded at the cherub — a café-au-lait-skinned beauty with jet-black hair cropped close to her perfectly shaped skull. She said, “What do cherries have to do with us enticing evil people to have sex and then and kill them and take their souls to the Abyss for eternal damnation?”
I slid a look at Angel, who sighed. “It’s a euphemism,” she supplied. “It means you’re still virginal.”
“Of course,” the other angel said, shocked. “We have to be pure.”
“No, sweetie,” I said. “You don’t. You can’t. You’re succubi. And unless you go all American and believe that giving head doesn’t count as actual sex, you’re going to have to spread your legs and get with the infernal program. Your job is to fuck evil people to death. No way around it.”
She shuddered. Delicately, of course.
“Look, I’m going to make this simple.” I held her gaze, the headlights to her deer. “If you ever want to see the Sky again, you have to seduce your clients. That means you have to be seductive. And that,” I said, “means you have to be comfortable within your own skin.”
The angels looked bitterly unhappy.
“See? Right there, that’s most of the problem.” I pointed at them. “You’re treating this like a punishment.”
“It is a punishment,” one of angelic Travoltas said.
“No, a punishment is being banished from your home.” I stared down the polyester princess until she blushed and looked away. “Your problem, angels, is that you think you’re above being a Seducer.”
“We are,” Travolta No. 2 muttered.
“No, cherub. You’re not.” I walked up to her, putting added roll in my hips. “You are a Seducer. You seduce. Own that.”
The angel frowned. “Own it?”
“Think it. Feel it. Believe it.” I did a shimmy bop with my shoulders, setting my boobs a-jiggling. “Your body is the physical expression of that belief.”
“My body is pure,” another Travolta said.
I blew her a kiss. “Does your pure body have nipples and a clit? Does it have a vagina, by any chance?”
She blushed. Prettily, of course.
“God gave you the equipment for you to be sexual,” I purred. “God even gave you the added bonus of being able to enjoy the sex.”
The angels exchanged looks. None of them looked convinced. Even Angel looked down at her feet, clearly embarrassed.
“Don’t ruffle your tail feathers,” I said. “This lesson won’t be about sex. It’s going to be about something more important.”
They stared at me.
“It’s going to be about expressing yourselves, who you are, through your bodies. Through what you do with your bodies.” I moved my arms up, letting my fingers trace the curves of my hips, my waist, my breasts, moving up to run through the thick curls of my hair. “You’re going to do what I do. You’ll mirror my movements. You’ll dance,” I said, grinning. “And I’m willing to bet a Dove bar that by the end, you’ll even enjoy it.”
Travolta No. 2 lifted her chin. “What is this dove bar?”
My grin pulled even wider. “Sweetie, it is proof of a higher power at work. But chocolate comes later. Right now, let’s dance.”
# # #
“No, no, no. You roll your hips smoothly. Smoothly. Ack, what are you trying to do, body check someone? Smoothly!”
# # #
“And back down, and now up, two, three….for the love of all that’s evil, will you PLEASE stop biting your lower lip? You are not allowed to have White Woman’s Overbite when you dance!”
# # #
“Hey, no fair stopping a wipeout by cushioning your fall with wings! Balance, angels! Balance in those heels!”
# # #
“Gehenna help me, what is that, the Numa Numa Dance?”
# # #
“Yes..right that’s it…excellent! Really! And…no, stop, back up, back — ”
**CRASH**
“Don’t worry. That’ll heal.”
# # #
After forty minutes, I began to think it would be hopeless. And then, inspiration struck. I said to the angels, “Do you know Alvin Ailey?”
One of the cherubs said, “The dancer.”
“Right. Have you seen his ‘Revelations’?”
“Of course,” she said. It was the Travolta-coifed cherub, and sure enough, she spoke quite Brooklyn. “Whenever the dance troupe performs it, many of us watch.” She smiled. “It’s transcendent.”
“Yes. Exactly. The dancers tell a story with their bodies.” I looked at them all as they pondered this. “They don’t force themselves to make the motions. The music is their body’s partner. You see?”
Travolta No. 3 said, “But that dance expresses faith.”
“And blood, and joy. Exactly,” I said, nodding. “The dance expresses the emotion. See?”
“But Jesse Harris,” Travolta No. 6 said, “what we’re to do with mortal clients, that isn’t faith. That’s murder.”
“No, it’s bringing evil people’s souls to Hell so that their souls can be cleansed of their evil and then go to Heaven.” At least, that’s what Hell’s purpose was supposed to be, but Michael had once again changed the rules. Now Hell was a Roach Motel for humans — souls got in, but they didn’t get out. I decided not to share that piece of information with the cherubs; it would have been counterproductive. “You see?” I said. “It’s not murder. It’s performing a role to help those condemned souls seek redemption.”
Jesse Harris, bullshit artist. The message was one I believed in. I just wanted it to be true once again. But it wouldn’t, not with Michael in charge of the Abyss. Hell desperately needed new management.
The cherubs were looking at one another thoughtfully.
“Now then,” I said. “You ready to give this another shot?”
They nodded.
And then, under my instruction, they danced.
# # #
One hour later, we had made substantial progress. I was pretty sure they could hold their own in a dance club. Or maybe go a round on Dancing With the Stars.
“All right, angels,” I said, clapping my hands. “Let’s do it one more time.”
They struck their opening poses — one leg in front of the other, heel lifted, hands on hips, chests out.
I hit PLAY on the small CD player, and the opening beat of the Pussycat Dolls’ “Buttons” filled the studio. I counted off to the steady beat, “And five, six, seven, eight…”
The celestials moved. They walked in time to the beat, letting their hips go loose, using their long legs to their advantage. They paused, tossing their heads, their hands flirting with their thighs.
“And down, two, three, four, keep that eye contact, seven, eight…”
They moved down, slowly, sensuously, letting the music pull them up. Heads to the side and back, flicking their hair.
“And hips now, three, four…”
They moved, gyrating with the rhythm. Arms up and out, hands beckoning, lithe fingers flirting. Tempting. Teasing. And then again, from the top — walking, strutting, their movements more confident. Smiling this time, like they mean what they’re doing. And down and up, hands on hips, pumping now, shoulders loose, hair streaming.
By the third chorus, they were all into it.
By the fourth, they forgot I was there.
The song ended, and the angels held onto their poses, hands on their bodies like a suggestion.
“And that,” I said, grinning, “is how an angel dances.”
The halo giggled, the cherubs darting mischievous looks at one another. Only Angel herself wasn’t laughing — she stood proudly, smiling almost fiercely, her long blond hair thrown over her shoulder, her hands fisted at her sides.
“We can do this,” she said.
The angels cheered their agreement.
“All right, sisters,” Travolta No. 4 said. “Let’s go seduce some evil men.”
Can you give me a hallelujah?
Blood roared in my ears, and all I could think was No no no.
There are terrifying creatures out there in the Universe — razor-fingered boogeymen and beasts made of teeth and claws that lived in shadows, the ones that feasted on flesh and left trails of blood to mark where they’ve been. And there are cosmically powerful entities, too, those beings that can annihilate anything in the blink of an eye, quickly or painfully, all on a whim or a dare.
And then there’s Daunuan.
I stared wide-eyed at the possessed detective, my breath coming in painful hitches that left my throat raw. Passion burned in his glowing eyes, unbridled, wild. Devouring. It was a look that promised ecstasy as you screamed, and screamed.
Daun. My own personal demon, come once again to tempt me. The succubus I’d been wanted to cheer, because yes, I had missed him — his dark humor, his wicked laughter. His heat.
And Gehenna help me, the human I was wanted to let him seduce me, and damn the consequences. All I had to do was kiss him, and then…
No.
I bit my lip, hard. The shock of pain jolted me — fuuuuuuuuuck, that hurt — and then I could think again. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want him.
Humph. Stupid demon mojo.
My lip stinging like crazy, I forced myself to smile. “Heya, sweetie,” I said, even managing a hint of vixen. It was one thing to be afraid of Daun. It was another thing altogether to show him that fear. He’d get off on it. I wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction. “What’s a guy like you doing in a face like this?”
The glow around Daun’s eyes faded, but hints of the demon lingered, sneaking around the edges of the human features: the cruel slash of a smile, the malicious glint in his gaze. To say nothing of the hard-on tenting his pants. He said, “You like?”
“I’ve seen better.”
Ed Konrath’s pale lips peeled back into a smile. “And here I thought you had a thing for cops.”
“One cop,” I said. “Singular.”
Daun shrugged Konrath’s shoulders. “Fuck one cop, you’ve fucked them all.”
I smiled sweetly. “Shows what you know.”
“I know all I need to. They’re all bluster and guns a-blazing, acting like they’re untouchable.” Konrath’s voice, but Daun’s laughter: soft, strokable, quietly menacing. A tiger’s purr. “But they’re not.”
“So that’s why you have Detective Hooper over there, doing her impression of the Divinyls song? To prove a point?”
In its human mask, Daun’s smile stretched wider. “Hey, I like to show the ladies a good time.”
Before he fucked them to death. “How considerate.”
“That’s me. Mister Consideration.” He leaned down until his mouth hovered over mine, as if asking me for a kiss. I should have flinched back, ducked away from that evil smile. But I didn’t. I told myself it was because I was showing Daun no fear. It had nothing to do with how my blood was heating from the memory of Daun’s fingers sliding over my body…
Shit.
I smiled back at him as I clenched my fists. My nails bit into the meat of my palms, scoring deep. Pain again, just enough to clear away the haze of passion.
Behind me, Detective Hooper let out a squeal.
“What about you, Jezzie? You feeing considerate today?” Daun motioned to Ed Konrath’s erection. “Want to do a service for this civil servant?”
My mouth dry, I said, “Not particularly.”
“But you’re so good at giving head.”
“And you’re thinking with the wrong one.”
Daun chuckled, a smooth, rich sound that poured over my body like liquid chocolate. “Maybe we should call Shoulders in here, get a nice sword fight going in that big mouth of yours. What do you think, babes? You, and me, and your meat pie?”
“One cop,” I said again, clenching my teeth. “Singular.”
“So you say. I bet with a little persuasion, you’d be open to trying new things.”
A tingle in my breasts, sparking down to my core.
“Stop that.” My voice was barely a whisper.
“Stop what?”
Not real, I told myself. The desire flooding me right now wasn’t real. The way my nipples ached and my sex throbbed, though, was very real. “Stop. That.”
“Why, Jezebel, I haven’t even begun.” He tilted my chin up with his finger, stared deeply into my eyes. I saw myself reflected in his eyes, trapped in the chair, pinned by his magic. He said, “Is my little succubus all sorts of frustrated? One look at me and suddenly you’re slick with need?”
Heat blossomed between my thighs, and I bit back a groan. Shutting my eyes, I tried to push him away — physically, mentally. Emotionally. I wanted to run away screaming; I wanted to throw myself on him and beg him to fuck me.
“I could ease that precious ache of yours, babes. All you have to do is kiss me.”
Daun was everything I had left behind. Daun was everything worth living for.
No. That was a lie. Love was worth living for. And love made life. Demons of Lust claimed that love was part of their Sin, but they were wrong. Love wasn’t lust. And while Daun could make me want him more than anyone, anything, else, he couldn’t make me love him.
I loved Paul.
That quiet certainty calmed my speeding heart, slowed my frantic breathing. I opened my eyes to see him watching me, a knowing smile playing on his lips.
“Daun?”
“Yes, babes?”
“Go fuck yourself.”
He let out a laugh — nothing seductive this time, just an honest, belly-tickling laugh. “Oh, Jezzie. I’ve missed you.”
Yeah, I just bet. “That why you’re here now? Paying a social call?”
“More like a public-service call.” His eyes darkened, and I saw whispers of Hell’s magic shining there. “Dangerous times are here. A sweet human doll like you could get killed just walking down the street.”
“Is that a threat?”
“More like a newsflash.” He grinned, and I saw Daun’s fangs in Konrath’s mouth. “You’re so easy to influence. Anton could’ve had his wicked way with you.”
Word traveled fast. “I was careful.”
“You tell that to the mugger?”
Crap. “How’d you know about that?”
“A feathered friend told me.”
Angel.
“I hear things are heating up Below,” I said. “Angel mentioned something about your King threatening to pluck wings.”
“Babes, who do you think told Feathers to approach you in the first place?”
“You sent her to me?”
“Got to love air mail.”
I took a moment to pick my jaw up from the floor. Last November, Daun had been partnered with the cherub, loosely speaking: all the incubi had to show the new succubi the ropes, and Angel had been Daun’s charge. (If Daun and Angel had been anything to go by, there must have been a Hell of a lot of frustrated male Seducers roaming around the Pit. Cherubs weren’t known for getting sweet-talked into bed.) Even though Angel had been subservient in that role, she and Daun still had been on equal footing in terms of the hierarchy of the Abyss. Daun, a second-level demon of Lust, couldn’t command a cherub-turned-succubus to do something beyond sexual roleplay.
And yet, if I could believe him now — and my gut told me that yes, for this particular instance, he wasn’t lying to me — then Daun was doing just that. He was giving orders Below.
Unease bubbled in my stomach as it occurred to me that I hadn’t sensed Daun inside of Ed Konrath — no telltale stink of brimstone, no feeling of foreboding, no spooky theme music. No sudden aura flash to reveal his true nature.
The devil inside the man had been completely hidden from me.
I’d known that Daun had gotten stronger; when I had last seen him, Daun had been able to sprout wings and fly. Only the truly powerful infernal entities could soar on the updrafts of Hell. That had been months ago. And, if Chantinelle was to be believed, two Lords of Lust ago.
Which meant Daun had moved up in the ranks of the Lower Downs…to one of the greater demons of Hell. Was Daun one of the elite now? A baron, or even a duke?
As he loomed over me, I wondered what else could he do now, with more of Hell’s power within his reach. He used to boast that he wasn’t into power games. But what you had that much power, how could it not be a game?
Why was he here now? Was he taunting me? Helping me?
All of this, whirling through my brain in about three seconds. It was enough to make me dizzy. So I focused on Daun’s actual words instead of the intent behind them: he’d sent Angel to me. “Did you know I was going to offer to help her?”
“I had a suspicion.” Daun held my gaze for another moment, and emotions that I couldn’t place danced in his eyes. Then he pulled out a pack of cigarettes from Konrath’s pocket. He lit up, inhaling deeply, and the look of satisfaction on his face was very human. “And since you’re helping her and a halo of her sisters, she’ll help you in return. She’ll watch your back. But that’s not enough, not anymore. You’ve got to be careful. Jesse.”
Jesse, huh? “I know,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Demons, demons, everywhere, trying to influence people into sinning.” That was a big contention I had with Michael. Before, when the true Lord of the Abyss had reigned in Hell, demons knew their place: the humans sinned, hugely, over the course of their lives, and at the appointed time, the demons would collect their clients’ souls (after killing their clients’ bodies) and take them Below. Not any more. Michael was allowing demons to actively influence humans — pure-souled humans — to committing the very acts that would then damn them to Hell.
It was cheating.
Worse than that, all of the demonic involvement with humans was stirring things up on the mortal coil so much that the Nameless Evil — the antithesis of the Almighty — was slowly casting Its gaze away from Hell and onto Earth. And if It took too much interest in all things human, then It would lead the peoples of the world to destroy themselves.
In other words, Armageddon. And the ironic part of it was that Michael seriously thought He was saving the world, not dooming it.
Daun snorted. “I’m not talking about that.” Nothing remotely jovial or enticing about Daun’s voice now. “Strippers are getting killed in messy ways. Makes me shudder. I love your neck as is. Try not to sprout a second mouth.”
Wait a second. “Strippers? Plural?”
“And getting pluraler.”
Not just Mia. Gehenna help me. I felt the blood drain from my face. “Who else? Who else is dead?”
Daun took a drag from his cigarette. “Your meat pie will find out later.”
At first, his words didn’t make any sense. Then I remembered that Paul had to go view a body. A possible prostitute, he’d said.
Or maybe someone dressed for work at Spice.
I tried to think of who I hadn’t seen lately, but I was drawing a blank. “Is this your doing?” I asked Daun, my voice flat. “Acting on your King’s edict and encouraging some murdering fuck to kill my co-workers?”
Daun snorted, smoke dragoning from his nose. “Why on Earth or Hell would I want to see any human who inspires desire killed by violence? That’s one for Wrath, not Lust. Waste of perfectly good flesh, and we don’t even get the soul to claim. No, babes. Not me.” His eyes flashed, hot and red, like heat lightning at sunrise. “And what makes you think the killing is something infernal?”
The question hung there, unanswered. My mouth opened, then closed.
“Sometimes, Jezebel, humans do evil things all on their very own. Maybe you’ve forgotten that.”
“I haven’t,” I said, my voice small. Death and doom, all around us. Humanity clawing its way to extinction. Armageddon approaching.
Michael’s actions might be spurring it on, but at the end of the day, it was still the humans who were the ones welcoming the end of everything with open arms. People were so fucking stupid.
I closed my eyes, trapping my tears.
“Aw. You look so sad.” Daun’s hand, brushing my cheek. “Poor little Jezebel.”
Blowing out a breath, I steeled myself and opened my eyes. Daun, standing over me, was looking at me intently, a small smile playing on his face. The red glow to his eyes had softened to a crushed rose, and I thought there was something almost tender shining there.
Stupid of me. There was nothing tender about Daun. Not now. Not ever. He was a Seducer. Maybe he’d been my friend, and more, once. But that time was long gone.
No, that was unfair. He’d helped me save Paul’s soul from the terrors of the Abyss.
Then again, Daun had nearly claimed my own soul in the bargain. For a brief time, he actually had owned me — my thoughts, my desires, my everything that made me who I was had been subject to his will. Daun was evil. He’d never pretended to be anything less.
But he could have forced me to remain with him in the Pit as his love slave. His plaything. Instead, he had let me go.
Daun was smiling at me, squatting down now so that we were looking in each other’s eyes. Yes, there was tenderness there. And something more. Something that didn’t belong in a demon’s eyes. Something magical. Something…
Detective Hooper let out a howl of joy.
Daun and I exchanged a grin.
“She’s got a set of lungs on her,” I said.
“Wouldn’t have pegged her for a screamer.”
We both laughed, even as Daun made a slicing motion and Hooper’s sound of rapture ended on a groan. Easy come, easy go. That made me laugh all the harder.
Bless it all, I really had missed him.
When we were laughed out, Daun stood up and walked around me, heading to the enthralled detective. I turned my seat to watch him. Maybe he’d let me go once before, but that didn’t mean it was safe to let him have my back. “I saw Chantinelle,” I said. “She told me there’s a new King of Lust.”
“Did she?”
“Anyone I know?”
He slid me a dark look, all the more startling on that pale face. “You left the fold,” he said around his cigarette. “You’re just another human doll now. You know I can’t tell you that.”
“You mean you won’t.”
“You say tomato…” Now he was standing behind Hooper, who was completely oblivious. And very flushed. And rather sweaty. Her blouse gaped open, revealing a no-nonsense beige bra. Her left hand was inside the bra cup, her fingers and thumb rolling her swollen nipple.
“Well,” I said lightly, “the way your lord sovereign is going, at this rate you’ll be wearing the horny crown.”
Daun cocked Konrath’s head. “Would that be so bad?” he asked, bemused.
I imagined him as Lord of Lust. He’d kick things off with an orgy to put Bacchus to shame, and things would only get rowdier from there. All of Hell would be rockin’, no matter who or what came knockin’.
King Daunuan. The thought made me smile. If only I didn’t feel so sad.
“You’d be terrific,” I admitted. “But the Kings of Sin and Land don’t get to reign for long under the new management.”
“Better to burn out than to fade away.”
“So I hear. Just…be careful, Daun.”
“Aw.” He dragged the word out, long and teasing. “See that? You still care about me.”
I sniffed. “Don’t flatter yourself, incubus.”
“Flattery? Who said anything about that?”
Daun magicked away the cigarette, then clamped Konrath’s hands onto Hooper’s shoulders. She let out a shuddering gasp, her back arching. With a long “AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH,” she sagged against the chair, breasts heaving. Her head lolled back, her mouth set in a huge grin.
This time, I didn’t find her orgasm funny at all.
Standing over the dazed woman, Daun smiled smugly at me. “I said you still care. And more than care. You still want me.”
“You’re deluding yourself,” I said, crossing my arms. “I love Paul.”
Daun chuffed laughter. “You’re just the cutest thing, flinging your declaration of love around. You don’t love him, you know. You only think you do.”
In my mind, Chelle’s voice, cruel and mocking: You don’t love him, Jezebel. You only think you do.
My heart lodged in my throat. “Did you send Chantinelle after Paul?”
“Me? I have nothing to do with who the Nightmares claim.” Daun arched a pale brow. “Why, Jezzie? Is your man having bad dreams?”
Like he didn’t know. “Stop fucking with me, Daun.”
“Babes, I haven’t fucked you in months. Happy to start again.”
“I love Paul,” I growled, my fingers squeezing my elbows. “Stop making me feel this way about you.”
A very long pause, and then a slow, evil smile bloomed on Daun’s face. “Ah. You think I’ve done to you what I’ve done to the delightful Jaynie Hooper. Sorry to disappoint you, Jezzie. I’m strictly here on cop business, so to speak. Konrath was so I could talk to you. Hooper was so we could have some privacy. But that’s it. My power hasn’t touched you.”
I froze.
Unholy Hell, no.
Daun’s smile turned playful. “Whatever human feelings you have surging through you about me, that’s all you, Jezebel.”
I whispered, “Liar.”
“Of course,” he shrugged. “Demons lie. But I’m not lying about this. I can’t help it if your body misses my touch.”
I wanted to vomit. No matter what he said, he was lying. He was making me want to fuck him, want to walk away from humanity and be with him in Hell and scream in delight as we screwed among the damned. That wasn’t me. Not anymore.
Please, I begged silently. That can’t be me anymore. I loved Paul.
Didn’t I?
“We fit perfectly together,” Daun crooned. “We belong together.”
I snarled, “I belong with Paul.”
“So you say.” He stroked Hooper’s shoulders, and she moaned in delight. “Ever ask yourself what a prude like him is doing with a sexual creature like you?”
“He’s not a prude.”
“He’s hardly a sexual deviant. You’re a stripper, Jesse. When you were a demon, you used to fuck people for your job. He’s a cop.” Daun smiled innocently. “A bit of a disconnect, wouldn’t you say?
Dizzy, I clutched the armrests. Don’t let him get to you, don’t listen to him, don’t —
“I know,” Daun said, waving a hand, “you’re going to tell me that opposites attract. But really, you and Shoulders aren’t just opposites. You’re completely wrong for each other.”
Paul, my White Knight. Paul, who lately has been so focused on his work that he barely had time for me.
“And the really delicious part about that?” Daun said idly. “You know I’m right.”
“I know you’re insane.”
“Am I? You ever wonder why your man fell head over heels for you? And so fast? What is it about you that makes him forget himself?”
Earlier today, Paul and me in bed, fucking without any thought of birth control. Paul calling me Jezebel, saying my name like I owned his soul.
And I’d smiled.
I whispered, “Shut up.”
“Maybe there’s still some succubus in you after all.” Daun’s eyes burned, and in Kevin’s chair, Hooper cried out in ecstasy. “Maybe you made Shoulders want you.”
“Shut up!” Screaming now: “Just shut up!”
“And maybe you know, deep down, that Shoulders isn’t enough for you. And that’s why you still want me. Maybe you still crave the heat that only someone from the Heartlands can understand.”
Someone like Daunuan, incubus extraordinaire, creature of Hell.
Laughter bubbled up. Oh, he was good. The bastard had almost made me believe that I’d bespelled my man. But Paul and I had fallen in love way before I’d started leaking Hell magic.
“I love him, Daun.” It said it simply, a statement of fact. Truth was always delivered best without frilly emotion, especially when talking to demons. “And he loves me. No matter what you say, nothing will change that.”
A pause, thick with things unspoken. Then Daun laughed softly, the sound tripping up my spine. “You keep on telling yourself that, Jesse. Let me know when you actually believe it.”
Then he grabbed Hooper and crushed her to him, sealing his lips on hers. She melted into his kiss…
…and then both cops opened their eyes wide and shoved each other away.
Jaynie Hooper was red-faced and flustered, one hand over her exposed chest, the other mopping back her sweat-slicked blond hair. Ed Konrath was equally out of sorts, harrumphing and full of bluster as he tried to explain how the two of them had woken up in a lip lock.
Wherever Daun was now, he had to be laughing hard enough to puke up his spleen.
“Jeez, guys,” I said faintly. “Get a room, will you?”
“This is so not how I pictured us spending our day off together,” I said to Paul.
“It’ll be fine.” He turned left down Twenty-Fourth Street, then immediately got stuck in traffic. “They’ll just want the basics. Your info, how well you knew Mia, stuff like that. You caught a break that you were in the club when the M.E.’s calling the time of death, so you’re not on their suspect radar.”
“You say the sweetest things.”
If it were up to me, the last thing I’d be doing on my day off was talk to the police about a colleague’s death. But not even ten minutes after Candy had breathlessly given me the dirt, Kevin had called. Everyone had to come in to talk to a couple of detectives about Mia. No exceptions. Maybe it would have been different if Mia had accidentally swallowed drain cleaner or had become a bug on a taxicab’s windshield. But no. She’d gotten her throat slashed during what looked like a date gone bad, so now we all had to pour our hearts out to the homicide unit to help give them leads.
S.O.P., according to Paul. P.I.T.A., if you asked me. At least Mia had the decency not to get herself killed at the club; knowing her, she probably would have aimed the jettison of blood at my locker just to annoy me.
So here we were, me and Paul, spending our limited time together, at least—but instead of getting me sweaty, my man was giving me a ride to Spice. Paul wouldn’t hear of me taking a cab; that was against the White Knight code of ethics. He was driving me in, and he’d hold my hand for support until the big, bad dicks were done with me.
I sighed. Thinking about big dicks also made me think about what Paul and I had been doing when the phone rang. This was…what, twenty-four times our sexscapades had been interrupted? That had to be a record. Someone was fucking with me, and I didn’t mean Paul. I threw a nasty look Skyward, then Below, just to cover my bases.
Paul darted his gaze my way before looking back at the street. “You sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine.” Annoyed, but fine.
“You’re taking this well.”
For a moment, I thought he meant our delayed sexual gratification, but then I realized he was talking about Mia’s death. At times, Paul and I had different priorities.
“It’s not a big deal,” I said. “I didn’t like her. We weren’t friends. We were barely civil to each other.” She’d work the tip rail when I was doing a stage set, which was against stripper etiquette. In other words, she was a total bitch. “I’d be lying if I said I’d miss her.”
Paul grimaced. “Please tell me you’re not going to say that to the detectives.”
“No worries,” I said lightly. “I’ll be all sorts of sad, but not too sad, and I’ll say what a tragedy this is, yada yada.” Hey, I’ve watched Law and Order. I knew how to emote to the police.
Paul might have thought I was over-compensating, because he said, “You know it’s okay for you to be upset, don’t you?”
Well, sure. And I was upset: I had to waste a good chunk of the day by hanging out at Spice on my day off. Just went to show that even in death, Mia was totally inconsiderate of everyone else. But that wasn’t what Paul was driving at.
“It sucks that she got killed,” I said with a shrug. “But I really don’t care about her.”
Now Paul looked pained.
“Sorry, I know that sounds cold. But she wasn’t someone I really cared about. And even if she was, people die. Sometimes, people get murdered. That’s how it is. Life goes on.” I wasn’t one for philosophy, but I thought that summed it up pretty well. Or, as others would say, life’s a bitch, then you die.
Paul seemed to accept that. Or maybe he was really bothered by it but didn’t want to say so. Either way, we drove on in a strained silence until we got to the club five minutes later. He let me out, then went to look for a parking spot. Shouldn’t be too hard with a Honda Fit. He could probably squeeze it under a cargo truck’s mud flaps.
I opened the huge black door of the club and strode inside. My heels clacked loudly as I walked down the short hallway, ta-thump ta-thump — the sound of the heartbeat of my Coach boots. The foyer was polished, and dark, and very elegant in its mahogany. A faint smell of citrus clung to the air, similar to the way the sky smells before a snowstorm: enough that the scent brought with it a sense of recognition without being overpowering. No sterile ammonia environment was this; here was the sort of entrance that graced old-money mansions and corporations with dreams of world domination.
It took a lot of imagination to picture the rest of Spice as a high-class titty bar.
I opened the doors that separated the club from the foyer and walked into the main showroom. Every time I was in the club before we opened, I felt off-kilter, like I’d expected to see a photo of Jackie Kennedy in her classic pearls and instead got a close-up of Britney Spears sans panties. Without its trappings of flesh and fantasy — without the music blaring and the lights blinding and the smells of sex and money and desperation—the showroom felt like a backdrop, all cardboard and two-dimensional, palpable emptiness surrounded by a thin-walled box. Strippers who weren’t stripping were just people wrapped in their boring everyday lives. And clothing.
A quick scan showed me that most of the staff was here, from the temps to the full-timers. Near the stage, Kat was seated at one of the round tables, talking quietly to Joey. She was looking distinctly green; even the sparkling rock on Kat’s finger couldn’t brighten her features. For a gal who served shots at a strip club, she was a sensitive person.
Other than Joey, the bouncers were looming in the back corner, flexing their biceps and looking pissed off and put out. I sympathized. Jerry and Kyle, the DJs, were slumming by the foosball table with Trixie, who was watching them play. Andy was hovering near the bar, as if he were debating fixing drinks for the house.
Kevin wasn’t anywhere to be seen; neither was Jon, the assistant manager. Faith and Candy also were missing, but the rest of the dancers were milling about, looking uneasy or bored, or both. Kelly was sharing a smoke with Star. Closest thing to doing something remotely evil. I went over to their table, throwing a smile at Circe, who was bitching to one of the waitresses about missing her constitutional law class for this.
“It’s ridiculous Kevin made us come in,” she was fuming. “Not like they’re really interrogating us. They should’ve had us come into the station at our own time.”
I agreed with her. But if the others were like me, their own time would have turned into not having the time, and then no one would have spoken to the police. Not that there was anything to hide; we just had our lives to live.
Unlike Mia.
Reminding myself that I didn’t care about the dead dancer, I flashed a smile at Kelly and Star. “Feels like we never left, huh?”
Kelly groaned. “You said it.”
“This is nuts,” Star said around her cigarette. “Stupid bitch went and got her throat cut, and we’re in here like we did something wrong.”
“We’re here to help,” Kelly said. “It’s the Christian thing to do.”
That made me smirk. “Where’s Candy and Faith?”
“Faith didn’t show yet. Candy’s in Kevin’s office now, getting lectured at by the cops.” Kelly let out a humorless laugh. “Guaranteed to fuck up her day. She hates the police.”
She should try sleeping with a cop. That would take the edge off.
“Take off your coat,” Star said to me. “You’re going to be here a while.”
Smiling, I leaned against the table. “Come on. How long could it really take?”
# # #
By the time Jon tapped me to haul my ass to Kevin’s office, Paul had found parking, peace reigned supreme in the Middle East, and all the construction on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway had been completed.
Well, one of those three, anyway. It just felt like a million years had passed. Considering I used to wait in line literally for days to get into Hell and for weeks to process infernal paperwork, that’s saying something. Demons had nothing on civil servants when it came to making others wait. And wait. And encourage them to die of boredom. Thankfully, Paul had a couple packages of doughnuts in his car, which he brought inside and shared with me after an hour had gone by. (Mental note: before agreeing to voluntarily talk to cops, eat breakfast.) It must have been one of the Police Force’s Ten Commandments: Thou shalt have a secret stash of food in thy vehicle.
“You’re up, Jezebel.” Jon delivered this news with all the enthusiasm of a lifetime gigolo at the wrong end of a shotgun wedding. “The dicks are ready to talk to you. Kevin’s office.”
Finally. After this, Paul and I could get our day off back on track. I thanked Jon and slid out of my chair. My butt thanked me louder for finally getting out of the chair. Paul squeezed my hand, and he walked with me out of the showroom and down the corridor that led to Kevin’s office. Moral support? Check.
As we got to the door, Paul murmured to me, “It’s cold back here.”
I didn’t really notice; I was used to the temperature being cold in the club — all the better to make sure the dancer’s nipples stayed erect. “Kevin’s probably too cheap to heat any room that doesn’t have a paying customer.”
The manager was outside his office, looking like he was running late for a tax audit. “Just answer their questions,” Kevin told me. “Make it fast. In and out.”
Too easy; I let that go.
Glancing at his watch, Kevin muttered, “Maybe we can even get this place open before tomorrow.”
“Sorry to see you so broken up over Mia,” I said sweetly.
He scowled at me, all purple veins and high blood pressure. “You realize how much money we’re losing from this impromptu interrogation?”
“It’s not really an interrogation,” Paul said, but a scathing look from Kevin shut him up. Paul smiled, shrugged a “What can you do?” shrug.
Kevin eyed him. “You can’t go in.”
Maybe he didn’t know Paul was a cop. Or, more likely, Kevin was being a prick.
Paul rolled with it. “I know,” he said. “Just here for support.”
“Whatever.” Kevin rapped on the door. “Next one’s here,” he called out to the detectives waiting within. To me he added, “Be polite, be quick.” Then he marched toward the Men’s Room, probably to replace the stick up his ass with something sharper.
The office door opened, revealing a big guy in a cheap suit. White blond hair, very light eyes with faintly pink rims. Skin that begged for a tanning salon. I wondered if he knew that Albino Chic was passé. He stared at me, took me in from head to toe (taking a bit too long on the parts in between) and then glanced at Paul.
Next to me, Paul stiffened. I sensed it more than felt it, and it had little to do with his sudden vice-lock on my hand. There was this palpable energy emanating from him, this feeling of trapped motion and immanent danger — a jungle cat poised in the branches, a growl in its throat.
And it wasn’t just him. Whereas the albino had clearly been undressing me with his eyes, he was projecting a distinct my-dick-is-bigger-than-yours vibe at Paul. I picked up on it because I’m a trained professional. That, and the way the guy’s pale lips twitched into a smirk. The air between the three of us fairly crackled with tension, and not the yummy sexual sort.
“Which of you is next?” the bleached detective asked. Tough guy voice, deep and loud. Brooklyn accent. Overdoing the alpha male image, but I wasn’t about to tell him that.
“Me,” I said.
“Okay, come on in.” But instead of getting out of the doorway so I could walk in, he fixed his gaze on Paul. “You have to leave your man outside.”
The tension got dialed up to eleven.
Putting on my professional smile, I told the albino, “I know.” Then I gingerly removed my hand from Paul’s death grip. Ouch. Flexing my fingers, I said softly, “Be right back.”
Paul smiled, his lips pressed tight. A small tic pulsed on his jaw. He didn’t break eye contact with the other detective. “I’ll be here.”
“I know you.” For a moment, the albino’s words hung in the air, heavy with venom. Then he grinned at Paul, friendly as a snake-oil salesman. “Harrison, right?”
The barest of pauses before Paul returned the fake charm. “Close.” He extended his hand quickly, shooting from the hip to grab the other man’s hand and do a walnut-cracking handshake. “Paul Hamilton. I’ve been by the Thirteenth a few times. Helped on a few cases.”
They pumped hands, all popping veins and bulging muscles. I nearly gagged on all the testosterone.
Machoness proven, the men disengaged. They should have been circling each other with their hackles raised. Had to be a guy thing.
The albino said, “What division, Robbery?”
“Vice.”
“Right.” He smirked, but then quickly pulled it back into his so-very-friendly smile. He used too much tooth whitener, I noted; he could blind a person at thirty paces. “Good to see you,” he said. “I’m Ed Konrath.”
“I’ve heard of you,” Paul said. “Pleasure to meet you, Ed.”
“The pleasure’s mine.”
Whole lot of pleasure going on, and none of it involving tongues. I kept my mouth firmly shut and waited for the men to finish their pissing contest.
“Tell me, why’s Vice hanging around?” Ed’s smile still looked friendly, but there was an edge to his voice and a predatory gleam to his eyes. He looked like an ad for date rape. I didn’t know if Ed was an asshole, or if this was some sort of Vice/Homicide rivalry. Maybe both. Then he added, “Maybe you’re on break, and you’re here to catch a show?”
Okay, definitely one for the Asshole column.
“Just here for support,” Paul said, showing far too many teeth.
“It’s Hug A Stripper Day or something?”
Paul’s eyes narrowed, but his smile remained in place. “Miss Harris is a friend.”
“Ah.” Ed turned to me. “Well, Miss Harris, any friend of Harrison’s is a friend of mine.”
He wished. “Hamilton,” I corrected with a smile as fake as his. “And you don’t get the same benefits he does.”
Ed slid Paul a calculating look. “Really? I’m impressed. Maybe I could get a temporary transfer to Vice. Take a bit of a vacation from doing real work.”
Paul turned up the wattage of his smile. It was my turn to be impressed; if it were me, I would have punched Albino Ed’s over-bleached teeth out. Paul said, “You mean like on the Movie/TV Unit? It’s been what, six months since you’ve kept traffic off the sets when they shoot CSI?”
Ooh. Point, Paul.
Ed Konrath said nothing for a very long moment. His pink-rimmed eyes gleamed, and his smile festered on his ghostly face. When he spoke again, his voice was silky smooth: a tiger’s purr, rumbling with momentary contentment — hinting at the potential for violence. “As much as I’d love to tell you about my career, I have work to do.” Ed the Dick motioned to the office. “Come on in, Miss Harris.”
“I’ll be waiting right here,” Paul said to me, but clearly the words were meant for Ed.
“Don’t worry, Harrison. We’ll take real good care of her.”
“For God’s sake, Ed,” a woman’s voice called out from Kevin’s office. “You going to bring her in or ask her out?”
Ed chuckled silently as he stepped out of the doorway. With a last, brief smile at Paul, I walked into the small room. Standard office; nothing about it screamed cheesy 1970s porn film, which was a big step up from the manager’s office of the last strip club I’d worked. That had been all shag carpeting and Naugahyde sofas. This was just a room with a big desk, two chairs, and some filing cabinets. No pictures on the desk or walls. And the carpet was a bland Berber.
I heard the door snick shut behind me — courtesy, I assumed, of the overly polite Detective Konrath. I pasted a smile on my face. Time to make nice.
A large-boned blonde sat in Kevin’s chair. Her hair was pulled back in an unforgiving twist that she might have thought was glamorous. She was coldly pretty, with a brittle mouth and wide eyes the color of blue glass. She wore a Reagan Red power suit that did nothing for her complexion. There was a pad in front of her and a pen in her hand. All business. She probably wore her makeup to bed, just in case she got a call in the middle of the night and had to leave in a flash.
“I’m Detective Hooper,” she said. “This is my partner, Detective Konrath.”
“We’ve met.”
“Okay. Your name?”
“Jesse Harris.”
“Have a seat, Ms. Harris.”
Her tone brooked no nonsense. I sat.
“Occupation?”
“Exotic dancer.”
Behind me, Ed snorted. “You mean ‘stripper.’ ”
“I prefer ‘exotic dancer.’ ”
Hooper asked, “Did you know the victim?”
A lump formed in my throat, and I swallowed thickly. The victim. That was too impersonal. Too cold. I hadn’t liked Mia at all, and I really didn’t give a shit that she was dead, but she shouldn’t have her name erased.
Chelle’s voice, soft and deadly: It is ill-seeming to name those who have perished.
A demon maxim, that. But I wasn’t a demon anymore. Maybe in their souls, humans resented being reduced to a statistic in USA Today. So I made sure to say her name, or at least the name I knew her by. “Mia and I have been on shift together, but that’s about it. We weren’t really friends, just co-workers.”
Detective Hooper scribbled something on the pad. “She have any problems lately? Abusive boyfriends, angry roommates, that sort of thing?”
I shook my head. “Didn’t know her well enough to answer that. She didn’t bitch about anything lately, though.” Not more so than usual. Mia was — had been — the sort of person who seemed happiest when they were complaining.
“You know if the victim was doing drugs?”
“Sorry. No clue.”
“Hooking?”
Nice stereotype of the people in my industry. She probably thought we were all giving the customers blowjobs in the coatroom. Keeping my voice bland, I said, “No idea.”
“Really?” That was Ed, who sounded like he was right behind me. “Seems to me you’d have a beat on that.”
“Can’t help you.”
Hands pressed down on my shoulders — familiar. Intrusive.
Possessive.
Lady Cop shot him a look. “Back off, Ed.”
He wasn’t having any of that. “Come on,” Konrath said to me, his voice far too smooth. “You’d know if the unfortunate Mia had been getting any action on the side.”
I squirmed, but I couldn’t slide out from his grip. Normally, I don’t mind when people get touchy-feely with me. But Konrath wasn’t one of my customers. “Already told you. I don’t know.”
“I don’t believe you.” His voice was a seductive purr that licked its way along the back of my neck — nothing Brooklyn about it now. “Was she fucking her clients? Tell me true, Jezebel.”
Hooper said something, but all I could hear was my name echoing in the air, now thinning out, finally fading away to nothing.
Cold sweat beaded on my forehead. I had to leave. Right now. I tried to get up, but Konrath’s hands pinned me down.
“No,” he whispered in my ear. “Sit. Stay. Good stripper.” His hands slid down a little farther, his fingers still north of my breasts, but not by much.
My heart jackhammering in my chest, I bucked, desperate to tear myself away. But his hands were like vices locking me into place.
“Detective Konrath,” Hooper growled, “get your hands off of her.”
He chuckled. “Go fuck yourself, Jaynie.” And then his fingers dug into my flesh.
A rush of power shot through me — a bullet of raw desire, immediate and overwhelming, dwarfing all other sensation. My world was a red maelstrom of passion, of heat, liquid and thick and unforgiving. I was drowning.
And I didn’t care. The urgent need to fuck and be fucked surged through me, exquisite in its utter brutality. And it felt right.
It felt like home.
An agonizing moment later, the power cut off. Aftershocks of pain and pleasure worked through me, jerking my limbs, leaving my flesh raw. Drained, I collapsed in my seat, twitching, panting like a bitch in heat.
Someone groaned.
I lifted my head to look at Detective Hooper…who was leaning back in Kevin’s chair, one hand plunged down the front of her blouse, the other working beneath the desk. Her eyes were squeezed shut, but her prim mouth was open wide, lips pulled into a rapturous smile. She groaned again, louder, and she started humping the chair.
My breath caught in my throat. I tried to speak, but all that came out was a strangled wheeze.
“Well now,” Ed Konrath said. “Alone at last.”
My seat spun around, and now I was face to face with the albino detective…whose pink-rimmed eyes were glowing red.
“Hey babes,” said the incubus Daunuan. “Miss me?”
“Try again.”
I concentrated, scrunching up my face as I thought with all my might about magicking away my robe. All I got for my effort was a headache. And, with my luck, probably crow’s feet. “No good,” I said with a groan. “It’s not happening.”
“You made your robe appear,” Paul replied, the voice of reason. “You can make it disappear.”
Scowling, I flumped down on the bed and mopped my curls away from my face. “It doesn’t work like that.”
Or maybe it did. Truth of the matter was, I didn’t know. When I’d been a demon, magic had come as naturally to me as breathing did to humans. I never had to think about it; it just happened. But now I had no idea how to tap into the elusive power that seemed to be inside of me.
Which, of course, begged the question of why I (maybe) still had access to magic at all. I was a plain old mortal now, down to my squeaky clean soul. I shouldn’t be able to do a hocus pocus, other than making my clothing disappear the old-fashioned way. The rare human who actually had any power to speak of usually got it by bartering with a demon. Some went directly to specific gods, like the Hecate, for their magic. And Gehenna knew, I hadn’t done anything like that. You couldn’t pay me enough to crawl to a worshipper-hungry deity or mega-powerful creature and ask for a boon. Those things tended to go poorly for the askee — who also tended to taste very good with catsup.
Next to me on the bed, Paul put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed gently, telling me silently that he supported me. That he loved me. Such a simple gesture, one that conveyed so much.
Bless me, I love my man.
I leaned my cheek against his hand for a moment, rubbing like a cat, and then I curled up against his chest. He’d put the shirt back on before we started experimenting with magic, and while I enjoyed the sight of him shirtless, I also enjoyed how the soft fabric of his sweatshirt was a wonderful contrast to the hard strength of him beneath the clothing. Mmm. He made the best pillow. And blanket — he wrapped his arms around me, held me close.
Smiling, I breathed him in. Yum.
And then he said, “Maybe you should give Caitlin a call.”
Just hearing her name was like an ice pick through my eye. “No.” That came out stronger than I had intended, but bless it all, the last thing I wanted to do was get her involved.
“She’s family.”
“So’s the mafia. Besides, she’s not really my sister.”
“Yes she is.”
I held back my initial reaction, which was to get a needle and ink and tattoo the phrase “JESSE ISN’T REALLY CAITLIN’S TWIN” on his forehead. Even though I’d explained to Paul that Caitlin had performed some sort of humungous spell to make the Universe believe I had always been her sister, he kept forgetting that. Part of the humungous spell, I assumed. (Mortal magic was different than infernal power. Most of it was nonsense, but some of it was very, very real. Once I’d scanned through a witch’s Book of Shadows after I’d fucked her shop assistant to death — a serial rapist with no sense of morals or fashion — and that glimpse of captured power, twisted and forced into a written language, had been enough to give me a migraine.)
Instead of explaining, yet again, that Caitlin had magicked up the whole twin thing, I focused on the important part: “I’m not calling her.”
“You need to get help from someone about this,” Paul said. “She’s a witch. She’s your sister. Why not ask her?”
I sat up and inched backward, facing him without being right in his face. “Even in my demonic heyday, I didn’t trust witches.” And with good reason: they were worse than the fey when it came to bartering for services — and the fey were the original lawyers of the supernatural world. “Now that I’m human, I really, really don’t trust witches.”
“Don’t you think that’s being paranoid?”
“Of course it is,” I said. “But the goddess of witchcraft and her followers are watching me. I’ve got good reason to be paranoid.”
“But Caitlin’s helped you.”
“You mean when she put a whammy on me when I was helpless in the hospital? When she messed with my memories, without asking me first? That’s the ‘helped’ you’re referring to?”
“She saved your life.”
Humph. “That’s beside the point.”
Paul arched an eyebrow, and he had the audacity to look amused. “What’s the point, exactly?”
“That she’s interfering with my life. Like the thing that time with the bracelet.”
“You mean when she gave you the information you needed to save my soul from Hell?”
“Stop taking her side!”
“Sides? There are sides now?”
Bless me, how could he be so gorgeous and so thickheaded? “I’m not calling her.”
“Hon,” Paul said patiently, “you told me that when you’d first needed magical help, you turned to her. Why’s that different now?”
I ticked off the points against Caitlin one by one. “She’s spying on me, she’s keeping information from me, and she’s paying my credit card bills.”
Paul blinked. “Paying your bills,” he said slowly, “is a bad thing?”
“Come on, you have to admit that you don’t ground someone in mortality and take care of their AmEx without expecting something majorly big in return.” As far as I was concerned, that rested my case. Contrary to what they’ll tell you, white witches aren’t selfless. They’ll rob you blind, same as black-magic users. The only difference is that white-magic magicians will tell you to have a nice day after they make you sign in blood.
“Majorly big,” Paul repeated. “Like, oh, a shieldstone?”
Fuck. I knew I shouldn’t have told him about me stealing that amulet from Caitlin. Mental note: stop all post-coital conversation. Or maybe invest in ball-gags.
“I’d been in a bind,” I said, “and rather desperate for protection at the time. But hey, I’d been a demon then. You know, evil. What was her excuse for screwing with my memories? For keeping tabs on me?”
“For paying your bills,” he said. “Damn her ruthless ways.”
I ground my molars together hard enough to start a fire. “I’m being serious. She freaking tied herself to me.”
“She saved your life.”
“You don’t get it,” I said, exasperated. “She gave me her name, Paul. Carved out a piece of history and shaped it and gifted me with it, made me her twin sister. Don’t you get how big that is, especially in magic circles?” I shook my head, still baffled by her action all these months later. “She wouldn’t have done that unless there was a big reason to.”
“Jess.” Paul reached over to take my hand. “I think you’re overreacting. She’s family. She’ll help you. That’s what family does.”
Satan spare me, he really didn’t get it. Stupid memory-and-Universe-changing spell. But that just goaded me on. “She works serious magic, love. The kind that’s better to avoid completely, because it can go very kablooey when things go wrong. I’m talking explosions. Super novas. Snowstorms in August. Polyester making a comeback.”
Paul seemed to take my words into consideration. Then he said, “Serious magic?”
“Yeah.”
“Like Hell-powerful, serious magic?”
I nodded.
“You mean, like the same place you’re getting your magic from by accident and can’t control?”
Touché.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “The whole thing makes no sense. I shouldn’t have any magic. I shouldn’t be reading auras.” I shouldn’t be seeing demons and angels arguing in the street.
Paul’s hand tightened on mine before he pulled away. “But you are. So you have to either ignore it or deal with it. And ignoring it’s not an option.”
Way to lecture the girlfriend. I sniffed, “Why not? Maybe it’s like teeth. If I ignore it, it’ll go away.”
“You’re joking, right?”
“I’m dead serious,” I said, crossing my arms. “I’m not calling her. It would be a huge mistake.”
For a long moment, Paul stared at me, his gaze hard. He sat, coiled, as the silence stretched between us.
I waited. For the record, it’s much easier to sit still when you’re not human; the only thing keeping me from fidgeting was knowing I was right. Powerful thing, being right. Made me feel tall.
Finally he said, “It’s not like you’re sick and you can call a doctor. You’re using magic. Hell-magic, you said. You don’t know how, and you don’t know why. You can’t control it. And you’re really sitting here, telling me that you’re just going to try to forget about it?”
I knew right then and there we were about to get into a huge fight. His back was up, and from the set of his shoulders, he wasn’t about to let this go. I must have offended his sensibilities. Paul’s a do-gooder by nature, and sometimes his notions of Right and Wrong were rather skewed toward the Greater Good end of things. Very annoying, especially when those notions didn’t coincide with my own sense of well-being.
Screw me six ways to Sunday, I didn’t want us to waste our quality time by arguing about my pseudo sister. I’ve waited weeks for the stars to align and our schedules to match. I wasn’t about to spoil everything by pissing Paul off when what I wanted was to get him off. Fighting was okay, but fucking was much better.
So I took a deep breath and said, “You’re right. I should call her.”
And maybe I should. That didn’t mean I would. But I didn’t have to tell Paul that part.
Now it was his turn to wait. When he wanted to, he could be terribly patient. Obviously, I was supposed to say something more.
Nibbling my lip, I wondered what Paul was waiting for. Did he want me to make a promise? Pick up the phone right now, while he watched?
Well…if he wanted to watch me…
I smiled demurely and let my robe slip down my shoulders. With a small shrug, I was bare to my waist. Come on, love. Let the frustration go. Let me make you feel good.
You want me, don’t you?
Paul’s gaze slid to my breasts, and I saw his eyes darken.
Yeah. There’s my guy.
I unfastened the belt one-handed, then peeled away the robe, first one side, then the other, until I was completely naked.
A smile quirked Paul’s lips. “Miss Harris, are you trying to seduce me?”
“Sweetie,” I said, closing the distance between us, “I didn’t realize I had to try.” I put my hand on his knee, slowly worked it up his thigh. “But what my man wants, my man gets.”
“Know what I want?” he asked, his voice ragged.
My fingers brushed against his crotch. “What?”
“You.”
Yes, love. Yes.
I tilted my head up and kissed him, lingering, my lips pressing softly on his. It was a very proper kiss, nearly chaste. In marked contrast, my hand stroked between his legs, teased that long bulge of muscle until it was straining against his jeans.
He groaned from my attention, the sound of his arousal like a drug running through me. I wanted more. I wanted him — all of him.0
My mouth opened to his. Our tongues danced together, dipping and spinning, as our lips kept time. The kiss went on, and on, growing hungrier, more insistent. Moving my hand to his fly, I unfastened button after button until the only thing between me and his cock was his underwear. And thanks to the flap in his boxer briefs, I soon had my fingers curled around his dick.
Paul’s groans turned into heated growls.
My hand worked, and worked, and he made the most delicious sounds until I just had to have him in me — first a little slip, then a big taste. I climbed onto his lap, straddling myself over him. Hips rocking, I rubbed against the length of his erection as I slowly I kissed my way along the strong line of his jaw. I moved against his shaft; I bit his earlobe and sucked away the sting.
He said my name then. Not “Jesse.” My real name. He called me Jezebel, and he said it like I was a drug, like I was the only thing in this world worth living for. Worth killing for. He said my name like I owned his soul.
And I grinned.
Then his mouth latched onto my nipple, and I arched back as he sucked me. Pleasure spiraled through me from tit to clit, hot and wet and addictive. I lifted up and speared him inside of me, and I cried out in sheer joy as he filled me.
Sweet Sin, this was what I wanted, now and forever — Paul and me, together. Paul fucking me.
He rolled me onto my back, and now Paul was on top of me, pounding me, sending us both closer to the edge —
— and that’s when the phone rang.
Oh, you’ve got to fucking be kidding me!
Paul froze above me, his sea-green eyes were wide. Caught. Then he let out a sheepish laugh and pulled out of me.
Crap.
“You don’t have to answer it,” I said softly, already knowing I was losing him. “Let the world go on for a few more minutes without us.”
“We need a condom anyway,” he said ruefully as he stood up. Tucking himself back into his pants, he added, “Can’t believe we were going to do that without one.” Paul had a thing about safe sex. I thought it was part of his White Knight charm. Usually.
The phone rang again, and Paul reached for the phone on his nightstand.
“So get the condom,” I said softly. “Forget the phone. Let the machine get it.”
“It could be important.”
As he picked up the receiver, I wondered if there’d always be a phone call coming. And even though it was horrifically unfair of me, I also wondered which was more important to Paul Hamilton: me, or his job.
My chest tightened, as if my ribs were caving in upon my heart.
White knights would wear tokens of their lady’s affection on their person — a scarf dangling from a javelin, or a pocket cloth tucked into their sleeve. Remove the token, and the knight remained.
Was I just a token of affection to my White Knight?
He dreams about love, you know. Chelle’s voice was musical and deadly, like glass shattering over bare skin. But he doesn’t dream of you.
Paul offered me the phone, a curious glint in his eye. “It’s for you.”
Me? Huh. I wasn’t used to getting phone calls. I didn’t have any mortal friends, and the immortals in my life tended to either speak in my mind or simply appear at very inconvenient times. Usually when I was in the bathroom.
I took the phone and said hello.
When I heard Candy’s voice on the other end of the line, I steeled myself for her to ask if I could cover her shift. I’d tell her no. The only stripping I’d be doing was for Paul.
“Jez, holy shit, Jez, did you hear?”
The connection was bad, all full of static. “Hear what?”
Either Candy clucked her tongue or the connection popped. “It’s all over the network. Kevin just found out and he told Jerry, and Jerry’s sleeping with Trixie so she overheard, and that girl can’t shut her mouth to keep her food from falling out so you know she called Faith and Kelly and Star, and my girl Faith told me.”
She was talking a mile a minute, and even though I spoke native New Yorker, I was having trouble keeping up. “Slow down,” I said. “Faith told you what?”
“It’s Mia, girl.” Candy paused, so I heard the next thing very, very clearly. “She’s dead.”
